Supplemental Resources for Empathy
List of Emotions: 135 Words that Express Feelings
The list of emotions a typical pre-K child understands may be limited to happy, mad, sad, and scared (Harter, S., & Buddin, B. J.), but as they grow, the list expands, and they develop a more nuanced vocabulary to explain how they feel.
Social Emotional IEP Goals
Social Emotional IEP Goal Bank We understand that you want to provide your students with the greatest possible chance for success in meeting their IEP goals. To help out, we’ve assembled a list of 10 frequently cited Social Emotional IEP goals as well as actionable objectives to include with them. Best of all, we’ve linked ready to go lessons and printables to each objective and provide additional resource suggestions to extend learning, giving you time ... Read more
Brain Breaks For Kids
How Do Kids Take a Brain Break? It can be a good idea to intentionally plan a brain break mid-lesson, roughly every 20-30 minutes, though frequency can vary by age. When you plan ahead, you may avoid the slump of disengagement and can also seize an opportunity to get creative with the activity. There are three general styles of brain breaks that all apply to the end goal of providing brief respite from rigorous learning ... Read more
SEL Books
For obvious reasons, we hope that you use our online social emotional learning interventions to help your students practice and improve their social emotional skills at their own pace; however, we know that it helps to reinforce learning with additional resources like printables, worksheets, group activities, and SEL books and games.
Self Care For Teachers
Recommended Grade Level: Adults SEL Skill(s): Multiple Duration: Over the Summer Materials: 5 Tips for Summer Self Care for Teachers Additional Resources
Responsible Decision Making Lesson
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary and Middle SEL Skill(s): Empathy, Impulse Control Duration: 30 minutes Materials: (Available when logged in to Centervention educator account) Responsible Decision Making Lesson Instructions Note: The grade ranges provided serve as guides. Read through the materials carefully, and begin or end wherever feels appropriate for your group of students. Tell students that today you will be revisiting the classroom rules. Have students list the rules together. As each rule is named, ... Read more
Body Language Mirroring
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary and Middle SEL Skill(s): Communication, Empathy Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Body Language Mirroring Activity Instructions Activity One Gather students in a circle and tell them that they will be playing a game to practice cooperation and communication. Say: “For the first part of this game you will watch me and pretend you are a mirror. Whatever movement I do, you should do too, just like a mirror. Pay attention as I ... Read more
Conflict Resolution for Kids
We’ve rounded up some of our top tips and lessons that will help you create a classroom that practices respectful resolutions and sees conflict as a chance to develop ever-important communication skills.
Agree to Disagree: A Lesson About Perspective
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary SEL Skill(s): Communication, Cooperation, Empathy Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Agree to Disagree Lesson Instructions and Teacher Guide Learning to appreciate and value the perspectives of others is a hallmark of effective communication and a foundation for flexible thinking and conflict resolution. This lesson will provide students with activities that explore expression, dialogue, and agreeing to disagree with respect and integrity. Introduce the topic Gather students to listen to a story. Retell ... Read more
How to Apologize
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary and Middle School SEL Skill(s): Communication, Empathy Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Apology slip worksheet (Available as a supplemental resource when logged in to your Centervention educator account) Learning How to Apologize Lesson Saying “I’m sorry,” and actually meaning it, can be nearly impossible for many kids and maybe even a few adults. The reality is that many people do not know how to apologize, or they resist saying they’re sorry because ... Read more
SEL Skill Printables
You can show an ongoing commitment to social emotional learning by recognizing students who demonstrate good or improving SEL skills.
Emotional Awareness: What Makes Me Happy
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary SEL Skill(s): Emotion Regulation, Empathy Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Emotional Awareness Lesson Directions Ask your students to think about the things that make them happy. A few examples you can share as prompts are: For your younger students, ask each of them to write down 4 things inside of the puzzle pieces on their worksheet. After they have listed the things that make them happy, have them cut out the pieces ... Read more
Wrinkled Heart Activity
Recommended Grade Level: Lower Elementary SEL Skill(s): Empathy Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Wrinkled Heart printable A Wrinkled Heart Activity Directions Prompt for Educators: “Words can be very hurtful, and we need to be careful of what we say so that we never wrinkle another person’s heart. If someone says something mean to you, it’s okay to say, ‘Please don’t wrinkle my heart!’ or to simply say, ‘Ouch! That wrinkled my heart.'” Ask your students to ... Read more
Eye Expressions: How We Communicate With Our Eyes
Eye Expressions Activity Instructions Ask your students how they can communicate without speaking. They might say things like: smiling, frowning, crying, using eye expressions, hand gestures, etc. And then ask them, how can they communicate if they are wearing a mask? Explain that today, they will learn how to communicate with each other only using their eyes. To help them think about how they might do this, ask them the following questions: Optional: The four ... Read more
Emotion Faces Worksheet
Directions for Emotion Faces Lesson Print out and provide a worksheet to each of your students, or if you are using the lesson remotely, please send them the typable PDF. On the first page, we have a list of 9 feeling words that your students will use to describe each of the 9 image pairs. We have completed an example at the bottom of the first page where the two characters are “Angry,” and we ... Read more
Student Strengths Lesson
Directions for Student Strengths Lesson Preparation If you will be using this lesson in person, you should print out a sheet for each student and provide a pen or pencil. There is a black-and-white version of the worksheet if you would like to have students also color in the flower or you can use the pre-colored version of the worksheet. Note: you will only need to provide one flower page per student. If you want ... Read more
How to Create a Bitmoji Classroom for SEL
If you’re providing remote instruction this year, you may have seem images where educators create a personalized virtual classroom that they share with students during online meetings. These classroom images are easy to make and they help students feel more connected even when they are learning from home. In this tutorial, we’ll provide step-by-step directions for how to create a Bitmoji Classroom and we’ll use a variety of posters and books focused on social emotional ... Read more
SEL Classroom Scavenger Hunt
This SEL classroom scavenger hunt will help students focus on doing good deeds or random acts of kindness for others. You can choose to give a reward for good deeds completed, or even better, have the reward be feeling good for doing something nice for others! Examples from the classroom scavenger hunt include: There’s no telling what simple random acts of kindness will do for someone else. So encourage your students to focus on completing ... Read more
Acts of Kindness Worksheets for Kids
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary SEL Skill(s): Empathy Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Kindness Worksheets Activity Instructions Part One: This worksheet will help students brainstorm kind words to use when communicating with other people. Prep: Print this worksheet and share it with your students. Prompt: Start a conversation with your students about kind words and why we should use them. Some suggested questions to use include: Ask your students to fill in the thought bubbles with kind words they would ... Read more
Social Emotional Learning Journal
Additional Resources Books
Gratitude Worksheets for Students in Elementary School
These gratitude worksheets will help students answer a simple, but impactful question: "What are you happy about today?"
Song About Feelings for Kids
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary SEL Skill(s): Communication, Emotion Regulation Duration: 30 minuntes Materials: Feelings Video Role playing cards for students: print and cut appropriate number of copies based on class or group size. Optional: Reflection worksheet for each student Feelings Song Lesson Instructions Prep: Review our List of Emotions post and lesson for feelings vocabulary words. Prompt: “Today we’re going to talk about emotions. Sometimes when we feel different emotions, we feel changes with our ... Read more
Holiday Printables for Social and Emotional Learning
When a holiday is coming up, it can be hard for everyone to remain focussed amid the excitement. We’re here to help! As the calendar turns and anticipation builds, our holiday printables will take your students beyond traditional coloring sheets and word searches, keeping them engaged, learning, and having fun! Whether they’re practicing non-verbal communication with jack-o-lantern expressions, healing hearts with thoughtful Valentines, or spreading a little cheer with compliment strips, students will benefit from ... Read more
Friendship Traits: Making and Keeping Friends Activity
Recommended Grade Level: Elementary and Middle School SEL Skill(s): Communication, Social Initiation Duration: 30 minutes Materials: Making and Keeping Friends Activity Instructions In this activity, students will cut out the statement strips and mix them up on their desk. Students will then read each statement strip. If they think the statement describes a good friend, they should glue it into the “GOOD” box. If they think that it describes a bad friend, they should glue ... Read more