A comprehensive SEL curriculum delivers clear long-term and short-term benefits — but even the best programs can start to feel routine. Fortunately, plenty of engaging social-emotional learning activities can breathe new life into your curriculum.
Whether you’re looking to add some quick refreshers to your day or simply want a few strategies to enhance learning in and out of the classroom, these seven little changes will make a big difference for your students.
7 Social-Emotional Learning Activities You Can Try Today
1. Add a mindful minute to your day
This is a quick self-regulation strategy to practice with your students, and it only takes a literal minute of your day. For younger students, you may start by providing options for their mindful moment, such as a guided breathing exercise or grounding practice. For older students, the options may be more open-ended. The better students get at this, the longer they may be able to sustain their mindful moment. If time allows, sharing about their mindful moments can also be a valuable social skills activity for students.
2. Write down goals together as a class
Goal setting is an important skill with a big impact across all five core SEL competencies. Through setting and working towards goals, students have the opportunity to practice self-awareness, build self-confidence, reflect on social dynamics, and actively engage with the decision-making process. Setting goals as a class encourages social awareness, communication, and teamwork. When goal setting becomes a normal practice in the classroom, students are more likely to apply it outside of school as well.
3. Create a teacher platform to share professional and personal SEL practices
Social-emotional learning is most effective when teachers practice it too, but with heavy teaching loads, limited planning time, and busy personal lives, teachers may sometimes put their own well-being on the back burner. Providing a platform for teachers to reflect on or share their own practices is a healthy reminder that their mental health is just as valuable as everyone else’s at school.
4. Praise student effort instead of results
It’s tempting to pile on encouragement for good grades and strong academic performances, but students are more likely to develop a growth mindset when they know that what matters most to those around them is their effort, not their end result. Try replacing exclamations of “Great job!” with comments like, “I can see how hard you worked on that!”
5. Add emotional check-ins to your daily routine
SEL curriculum is a practice, not a set of memorized facts, and adding elements of it to the daily routine encourages students to engage in the practice throughout the school day. Emotional check-ins can be as simple as having students color a square in to symbolize their feelings or writing one word onto an index card. This activity not only provides students with a reminder to make space for their feelings; it also gives teachers valuable data about how their students are doing emotionally and might help teachers to identify any patterns of concern.
6. Create SEL journals and allow access during free time
When students engage in this work, it’s helpful to keep it all in one place. This provides opportunities for reflection and allows students to review their progress throughout the year. Voluntary sharing of selected projects or entries through the year helps students build communication and social awareness skills. Allowing them access to these journals during free time also reinforces their personal practice of the skills they learned through more structured activities.
7. Engage parents
No matter how much time your students spend with you at school, families remain a primary influence on their students’ social-emotional development. Engaging parents in the curriculum can help them to reinforce these skills at home using shared vocabulary and practices. Including an Emotional Well-Being Tip of the Month in parent newsletters, sending home an introductory letter with each new unit, or simply opening conversation with parents in other ways can help them to understand what their children are learning, build their own understanding of emotional well-being skills, and reinforce these important practices outside the classroom.
Expectations vs Reality
Learn about the common misconceptions related to the implementation of these curricula in schools and districts.
Frequently Asked Questions About SEL Activities
What are some effective social-emotional learning activities for students?
Integrating SEL activities like mindful minutes, goal setting, and emotional check-ins can make daily instruction more engaging and impactful. These activities are designed to be easily implemented into daily school routines, enhancing students’ emotional and social competencies.
Why are goal-setting activities important for students?
Goal-setting SEL activities enhance students’ self-awareness and confidence, fostering important social and emotional skills. This process encourages students to engage more deeply with their learning environment and peer interactions.
What is the impact of focusing on effort in these activities?
Emphasizing effort in SEL activities promotes a growth mindset among students, valuing their dedication and process over just outcomes. This approach encourages students to persist through challenges and view setbacks as opportunities for growth.
SEL Activities Beyond the Classroom
Even with a great curriculum, simply going through the motions of teaching these skills doesn’t guarantee that students will embrace these important practices. These activities can reinforce skills beyond the classroom walls and help to create habits that last, even after students move on to higher education or employment. But it’s important to foster real-life application of the skills learned in class.
Integrating scenario-based discussions, role-playing activities, and interactive workshops gives students the chance to internalize and adapt the skills you’ve presented.
Take media literacy for example. While not immediately apparent as a social-emotional activity, exploring this topic with students can help them become better decision-makers and also teach them how to regulate the negative emotions misinformation can evoke. At the same time, media literacy has enormous application in today’s digital climate.
If you want to explore how a media literacy lesson might be useful in teaching life skills for 15 minutes or less, check out our free lesson plan and printable resources by clicking the button below.
Social-emotional learning works best when it is woven into the fabric of the school day — not treated as a standalone lesson. By adding even a few of these activities to your routine, you give students more opportunities to practice the skills that matter most. Ready to build a more comprehensive SEL program? Explore Ori Learning’s evidence-based curriculum to see how these activities fit into a bigger picture.
