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100+ Read Alouds to Teach Social Emotional Learning Skills

August 24, 2019 by pathway2success 1 Comment

100+ Read aloud short stories to integrate social emotional learning into the classroom. Elementary teachers and even middle school educators can use these texts to discuss SEL skills like empathy, friendships, emotions, decision-making and more. Read and grab your free printable list! #sel #socialemotionallearning #pathway2success

Social emotional learning skills are important. Every educator wants their learners to understand their own strengths and challenges, effectively cope with stress, persevere through challenges, have empathy for others, develop lasting friendships, and make positive decisions. These are really just a few examples of what skills social emotional learning can cover.

There are numerous benefits to teaching SEL skills in the classroom, such as a reduction of behavioral problems and giving learners tools to problem-solve on their own.

Sometimes, the best solution is to dedicate a time period to social emotional learning each day. If this is something you are planning in your classroom, I’ve developed a COMPLETE yearlong SEL curriculum for elementary learners (and I have a SEL curriculum for older kids, too)!

100+ Read aloud short stories to integrate social emotional learning into the classroom. Elementary teachers and even middle school educators can use these texts to discuss SEL skills like empathy, friendships, emotions, decision-making and more. Read and grab your free printable list! #sel #socialemotionallearning #pathway2success

With that said, sometimes time in the classroom is short. Although it can be extremely beneficial to teach SEL skills explicitly, there are always helpful ways that teachers can embed them into what they are already doing. For example, educators might use a daily SEL journal during writing time, have class discussions during break time, or use art activities to highlight SEL skills. One of the most helpful strategies for integrating SEL can be through literature.

The idea behind using literature to target social emotional learning skills really is quite simple. Educators can read the text as they normally would, stopping along the way to highlight critical skills that come up.

One of my favorite examples is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. In this short story, Alexander is having an awful day. It is such a terrible day that he wants to go and live in another country. However, rather than packing up his belongings and ignoring what is happening in his life, Alexander learns to cope with his emotions. He also learns about starting fresh each day. There are so many social lessons that can be learned from this one short read aloud.

With this, I put together a complete list of read alouds to use for social emotional learning. Grab a copy of your free printable SEL read aloud list to get started right away.

To get started, just find a skill you want to work on and select a book! As always, you know your learners best. It’s possible that not every book will work for your students, and that’s okay. Find the ones that suit their individual needs and see how much fun integrating SEL with literature can be.

Here are just a few examples from the complete list:

DEVELOPING SELF-AWARENESS

  • Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae
  • Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
  • It’s Okay to be Different by Todd Parr
  • The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi
  • Hooray for You! A Celebration of You-ness by Marianne Richmond

BUILDING CONFIDENCE

  • I’m Gonna Like Me by Jamie Lee Curtis
  • Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
  • Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
  • I Like Me! By Nancy Carlson
  • Zero by Kathryn Otoshi

UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS

  • Visiting Feelings by Lauren Rubenstein
  • Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall
  • The Way I Feel by Jonan Cain
  • The Color Monster by Anna Llenas
  • In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek

HOPES AND DREAMS

  • Hiromi’s Hands by Lynne Barasch
  • Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty
  • Big Al by Andrew Clements
  • Matthew’s Dream by Leo Lionni
  • The Wonderful Things You Will Be by Emily Winfield Martin

STUDY HABITS

  • Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell
  • Planning Isn’t My Priority by Julia Cook
  • Don’t Forget the Bacon by Pat Hutchins
  • See You Later, Procrastinator! By Pamela Espeland and Elizabeth Verdick

SELF-CONTROL

  • Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
  • How to Be a Superhero Called Self-Control by Lauren Brukner
  • What If? by Collen Doyle Bryant
  • What Were You Thinking? Learning to Control Your Impulses by Brian Smith

PERSEVERANCE & RESILIENCE

  • Salt in His Shoes by Deloris Jordan
  • Brave Irene by William Steig
  • Apples to Oregon by Deborah Hopkinson
  • Unstoppable Me! By D.r Wayne W. Dyer
  • Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Krull
  • The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires

RESPECT

  • David Goes to School by David Shannon
  • The Way I Act by Steve Metzger
  • Respect and Take Care of Things by Cheri J. Meiners

EMPATHY

  • The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
  • The Bicycle Man by Allen Say
  • Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller
  • Stand In My Shoes by Bob Somson
  • Zen Ties by Jon J. Muth

KINDNESS

  • Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
  • Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts
  • Pinduli by Janell Cannon
  • Good People Everywhere by Lynea Gillen
  • Kindness Starts with You by Jacquelyn Stagg
  • A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams

FRIENDSHIP SKILLS

  • How to Lose All Your Friends by Nancy Carlson
  • Making Friends is an Art by Julia Cook
  • Love Monster and the Last Chocolate by Rachel Bright
  • Jessica’s Box by Peter Carnavas
  • Louise and Andie: The Art of Friendship by Kelly Light

INCLUDING OTHERS

  • The Boy Who Wouldn’t Share by Mike Reiss
  • Rulers of the Playground by Joseph Kuefler
  • A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
  • The Invisible Boy by Patrice Barton
  • Same Same But Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

  • Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray
  • Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson
  • There’s a Bear on my Chair by Ross Collins
  • Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
  • Iris and Isaac by Cheterine Rayner

BEING RESPONSIBLE

  • The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey
  • I Just Forgot by Mercer Mayer
  • Arthur’s Pet Business by Marc Brown
  • The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins
  • The Way I Act by Steve Metzger

MAKING GOOD CHOICES

  • What If Everybody Did That? By Ellen Javernick
  • Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller
  • Making Smart Choices by Lucia Raatma
  • Land of Or by Katie Mullaly

PEER INFLUENCE

  • The Juice Box Bully by Bob Somson and Maria Dismondy
  • One by Kathryn Otoshi
  • The Hueys in the New Sweater by Oliver Jeffers
  • A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon
  • Bully on the Bus by Carl W. Bosch

REFLECTING ON CHOICES

  • David Gets in Trouble by David Shannon
  • Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Kenkes
  • Beautiful Oops! By Barney Saltzberg
  • After the Fall by Dan Santat

Happy reading! If you’re interested in more ideas for SEL, here are a few posts that might be helpful:

  • Using Games to Teach Social Emotional Skills
  • 100+ Free Social Emotional Learning Resources
100+ Read aloud short stories to integrate social emotional learning into the classroom. Elementary teachers and even middle school educators can use these texts to discuss SEL skills like empathy, friendships, emotions, decision-making and more. Read and grab your free printable list! #sel #socialemotionallearning #pathway2success

Filed Under: Social Emotional Learning, Special Education, Teaching Tagged With: empathy, sel, social emotional learning, social skills, special education, teaching, teaching ideas

Interventions for Executive Functioning Challenges: Attention

April 15, 2019 by pathway2success 1 Comment

Over 20 interventions, strategies, and supports to help teach attention skills to kids and young adults. Being able to focus and pay attention is a requirement for learning! Use these activities to help students with ADHD and ALL learners improve focus while improving your classroom management. Try attention grabbers, setting a timer, using fidgets, implementing flexible seating, and more. This is for regular education AND special education needs! #adhd #pathway2success

Challenges with focus and attention can become a huge roadblock to learning for kids and young adults. Simply put, attention is critical to learning. If students can’t focus on the lesson, they are going to struggle with understanding the new content. If students can’t focus on the directions, they are not going to know what to do. If learners are unable to switch their focus, they are unable to initiate new tasks. When students have difficulty with attention skills, it can be challenging for the educator, but also extremely frustrating for the learner.

It’s important to note that this article isn’t specifically written for kids with ADHD. That is because many kids (whether diagnosed with ADHD or not) have challenges with focus and attention. As always, it’s more important to focus on the interventions and supports than the label. With that said, if you feel your student or child does have symptoms of ADHD, it’s important to share those concerns with the school team or pediatrician.

What is attention? Attention is a fascinating multi-faceted skill. It is so much more than just being able to stay focused. Attention involves having self-awareness about your level of attention so that you can direct and re-direct your focus, as needed. It is being able to ignore distractions, like a cell phone or friends talking nearby. Even further, attention is being able switch your focus to more important information or a new task, such as when new directions are being given while working.

• Examples of Attention •

It’s important to note that attention is an academic skill, but it is also a life skill. It’s really a prerequisite to be able to learn new information. People need to pay attention while hearing new content, but also when having conversations with others. Here are some examples of what strong attention skills might look like:

  • Keeping eyes on the teacher and listening while learning about a new skill.
  • Quickly being able to switch focus from one task to another.
  • Making eye contact and listening to a peer during a conversation.
  • Listening and thinking about directions being given by a teacher or boss.
  • Being able to stop, focus, and listen when important information is being conveyed.

Over 20 interventions, strategies, and supports to help teach attention skills to kids and young adults. Being able to focus and pay attention is a requirement for learning! Use these activities to help students with ADHD and ALL learners improve focus while improving your classroom management. Try attention grabbers, setting a timer, using fidgets, implementing flexible seating, and more. This is for regular education AND special education needs! #adhd #pathway2success

• Possible Signs of Challenges with Attention •

Challenges with attention can have big impacts for students. As previously stated, when learners aren’t able to focus on new material, this makes learning that content that much harder. Similarly, when learners aren’t focused during instructions, they won’t understand how to proceed with an activity. Simply put, attention challenges become a major roadblock to learning.

Possible signs of attention challenges might include:

  • A student constantly staring out the window or down the hallway instead of watching the teacher during a lesson.
  • A learner who frequently misses hearing important instructions for tasks and then isn’t sure what to do.
  • A student who constantly plays with objects (pencils, toys, etc) instead of working on assigned tasks.
  • A child who is unable to finish assignments due to various distractions.

• Interventions, Supports, and Strategies for Attention •

Here are some strategies, activities, and ideas to help learners with time management challenges in the classroom:

  • Teach about attention and other EF skills explicitly
  • Give clear, one-step directions
  • Teach how to stay organized
  • Highlight most important directions on assignments
  • Teach and use classroom call-and response
  • Use a chime before giving important information
  • Incorporate movement during lessons and activities
  • Use visuals as reminders and supports
  • Reduce distractions around the room (ex: too many posters or a fan nearby)
  • Use preferential seating (find where the student can focus the best, as this is different for every child)
  • Incorporate hands-on learning activities
  • Use a study carrel (you can buy one or build it out of cardboard!)
  • Add center activities to allow for more movement during tasks
  • Break longer tasks into smaller, more manageable ones
  • Provide fidgets (and explicitly teach how to use them as a tool)
  • Give break breaks between lessons and activities
  • Teach students how to check in with themselves
  • Set a timer for work sessions
  • Consider a white noise machine or playing classical music during work sessions
  • Assign a study buddy during work sessions
  • Play attention-boosting games and play activities (like Simon Says)
  • Use student interests in lessons
  • Provide extra time to complete assignments

Over 20 interventions, strategies, and supports to help teach attention skills to kids and young adults. Being able to focus and pay attention is a requirement for learning! Use these activities to help students with ADHD and ALL learners improve focus while improving your classroom management. Try attention grabbers, setting a timer, using fidgets, implementing flexible seating, and more. This is for regular education AND special education needs! #adhd #pathway2success

• Strategies for Parents to Support Attention Skills at Home •

It’s important to note that parents and families can also implement strategies to help at home! Here are some strategies parents and families can use at home strengthen skills for attention:

  • Be clear with directions (and give fewer words)
  • Allow wind-down time after school
  • Build in routines and consistency
  • Develop a “homework space and time” (and stick with it)
  • Teach self-monitoring
  • Break longer tasks into smaller, more manageable ones
  • Keep an organized and tidy work space to reduce distractions
  • Give check-ins during longer work sessions (“Show me what you accomplished so far.”)
  • Reduce distractions (television, cell phone, computer)
  • Model focusing while the child is working (read while they do homework, for example)
  • Use a white-noise machine
  • Give breaks after work completion
  • Incorporate rewards for completing chores or assignments

Over 20 interventions, strategies, and supports to help teach attention skills to kids and young adults. Being able to focus and pay attention is a requirement for learning! Use these activities to help students with ADHD and ALL learners improve focus while improving your classroom management. Try attention grabbers, setting a timer, using fidgets, implementing flexible seating, and more. This is for regular education AND special education needs! #adhd #pathway2successIf you notice that your learners need some extra support with their attention and other executive functioning skills, I have units to target executive functioning skills for middle and high school learners and executive functioning skills for younger learners. Get all your materials in one spot to make teaching these skills a breeze!

This is a blog series focused on interventions to support executive functioning skills. Make sure you read up on interventions for planning and supports for organization!

Over 20 interventions, strategies, and supports to help teach attention skills to kids and young adults. Being able to focus and pay attention is a requirement for learning! Use these activities to help students with ADHD and ALL learners improve focus while improving your classroom management. Try attention grabbers, setting a timer, using fidgets, implementing flexible seating, and more. This is for regular education AND special education needs! #adhd #pathway2success

Filed Under: Behavior Management, Classroom Management, Executive Functioning Skills, Social Emotional Learning, Special Education, Study Skills, Teaching, Tips for Teachers Tagged With: adhd, attention, executive functioning, special education, study skills, teaching

Interventions for Executive Functioning Challenges: Time Management

February 18, 2019 by pathway2success 1 Comment

20+ interventions and strategies for kids who struggle with time management! This blog post includes tools, tips, ideas, and printable resources for school AND at home to help young adults and teens learn to use time wisely, procrastinate less, and complete tasks well. Great for students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and more. #executivefunctioning #timemanagement #pathway2success

Time management skills are essentially life skills. Kids and young adults need this skills now and in the future. All educators and parents want our learners to be able to work independently, use time well, and complete tasks on time. In order to meet these expectations, students need to learn, understand, and continually practice skills for time management.

Kids and young adults can benefit greatly from just learning what time management is and why it matters. The whole idea is that we can work smarter instead of harder, helping us to complete our work more efficiently in a shorter time frame. To kids who struggle with time management, this idea that they can learn tips and tricks to use their time better can actually sound like magic! Best of all, these skills are so broad that they can be integrated into every single thing we do. From every content area to every chore at home, we use time management skills (and they really DO pay off).

20+ interventions and strategies for kids who struggle with time management! This blog post includes tools, tips, ideas, and printable resources for school AND at home to help young adults and teens learn to use time wisely, procrastinate less, and complete tasks well. Great for students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and more. #executivefunctioning #timemanagement #pathway2success

What is time management? Time management is having an accurate understanding of time and making decisions to complete tasks in a timely way. As with most other executive functioning skills, time management isn’t just one isolated skill. It includes being able to estimate how long tasks will take, prioritizing, dividing time between tasks, pacing yourself, using time wisely, and working to meet deadlines.

• Examples of Time Management •

Here are some examples of what strong time management skills might look like on the spot:

  • Prioritizing which homework assignments to start before beginning a list of work.
  • Someone pacing themselves on a test to make sure they finish in the given time frame.
  • Writing out a daily schedule to keep track of times and events.
  • Chunking a project into sections to complete it by a specific deadline.

• Possible Signs of Challenges with Time Management •

It’s important to think of time management as a foundational skill for overall success. Imagine this: A student understands the content in a class well. They start working on a graded project to demonstrate their knowledge. The student is doing a fantastic job – truly their best work! The problem is that they realize the deadline for the project is tomorrow and there is no way they will be finished on time. Does the student turn in a half-completed project? Turn it in late? Rush and complete work that isn’t their best quality? Give up and turn in nothing at all? All of these outcomes demonstrate a clear issue with time management. Simply put, time management skills are a critical element to doing our best work.

Possible signs of time management challenges might include:

  • A learner spending too long on one problem or section of an assignment.
  • A student working on an assignment due next week (or not working on anything at all) when they have other work that is due next period.
  • A student consistently actively working but not finishing assessments or other assignments in a given time period.
  • A student who appears to always be in a rush at the last minute to finish work.

20+ interventions and strategies for kids who struggle with time management! This blog post includes tools, tips, ideas, and printable resources for school AND at home to help young adults and teens learn to use time wisely, procrastinate less, and complete tasks well. Great for students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and more. #executivefunctioning #timemanagement #pathway2success

• Interventions, Supports, and Strategies for Time Management •

As with all executive functioning skills, time management abilities can be strengthened and improved over time. Here are some strategies, activities, and ideas to help learners with time management challenges in the classroom:

  • Teach time management and other EF skills explicitly
  • Discuss and practice prioritizing with multiple tasks (one way to do this is make a list of assignments and go back and order them by importance)
  • Teach how to make checklists for a set of steps or tasks
  • Practice estimating time for different takes (you can even make it a game! “How long do you think it would take you to clean your room?”)
  • Use a visual timer to visually show how much time is left for a task or session
  • Use chimes to warn 5 (or 10) minutes before transitions
  • Maintain a relatively consistent and predictable daily schedule
  • Keep the class schedule listed in the same spot every day
  • Teach, practice, and discuss routines frequently
  • Have students put their schedules on the front of their binders or desks
  • Identify and reduce distractors (you can even call them time-eaters!)
  • Discuss and practice strategies for moving on when stuck (skipping a problem, rereading, asking a friend, etc.)
  • Practice, model, and teach organization (since it is easier to use our time well when we are orderly and organized)
  • Practice planning out longer project together with mini-deadlines along the way
  • Provide work check-ins to students to make sure they are on the right track
  • Teach how to maximize downtime (ex: if you finish your work early in study hall, look over other work and start something else!)
  • Teach students how to check-in with themselves (“How am I doing? Am I on track?)
  • Play time-based games (add a timer to most any game like Pictionary or Scrabble to get kids managing their time!)
  • Discuss and practice what it means to “pace yourself”

20+ interventions and strategies for kids who struggle with time management! This blog post includes tools, tips, ideas, and printable resources for school AND at home to help young adults and teens learn to use time wisely, procrastinate less, and complete tasks well. Great for students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and more. #executivefunctioning #timemanagement #pathway2success

• Strategies for Parents to Support Time Management at Home •

Here are some strategies parents and families can use at home strengthen skills for time management:

  • Model and practice estimating how long a task might take
  • Create a home calendar with important events listed
  • Discuss daily priorities and tasks at a common time (such as breakfast)
  • Develop a daily schedule with dedicated homework and chore times
  • Use strategies to stay organized and tidy
  • Reduce and give limits for social media and television time
  • Practice making to-do lists together and ordering items by importance
  • Identify, discuss, and reduce distractions (“time-eaters”)
  • Establish routines (for morning, after school, and bedtime)
  • Avoid over-scheduling (kids and young adults need downtime to learn how to use their free time, too!)
  • Consider digital calendars or apps
  • Model and discuss thinking ahead (such as putting clothes out for the next day)
  • Use a timer for working sessions
  • Use and discuss deadlines for tasks (“Your room needs to be organized by Thursday.”)
  • Provide rewards and incentives for completing tasks (“When all your homework is done, you can have 30 minutes of video game time.”)

20+ interventions and strategies for kids who struggle with time management! This blog post includes tools, tips, ideas, and printable resources for school AND at home to help young adults and teens learn to use time wisely, procrastinate less, and complete tasks well. Great for students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and more. #executivefunctioning #timemanagement #pathway2successIf you notice that your learners need some extra support with their time management and other executive functioning skills, I have units to target executive functioning skills for middle and high school learners and executive functioning skills for younger learners. Get all your materials in one spot to make teaching these skills a breeze!

This is a blog series focused on interventions to support executive functioning skills. Make sure you read up on interventions for planning and supports for organization!

 

20+ interventions and strategies for kids who struggle with time management! This blog post includes tools, tips, ideas, and printable resources for school AND at home to help young adults and teens learn to use time wisely, procrastinate less, and complete tasks well. Great for students with executive functioning challenges, ADHD, and more. #executivefunctioning #timemanagement #pathway2success

Filed Under: Classroom Management, Executive Functioning Skills, Social Emotional Learning, Special Education, Study Skills, Teaching, Tips for Teachers Tagged With: education, executive functioning, special education, teaching, time management

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⭐ Kristina Scully
💖 SEL & Executive Functioning
💻 Blogger at www.thepathway2success.com
👩‍🏫 Curriculum Specialist
🏫 10 Year Special Ed Teacher

Pathway 2 Success
Every teacher is a teacher of social emotional lea Every teacher is a teacher of social emotional learning. That's because we use these skills in everything we do! What are some of your favorite ways to work on SEL skills?
I never knew the name for this cool relaxation too I never knew the name for this cool relaxation tool, but it's as liquid timer. It's so soothing, even for me as an adult! What are some of your favorite calm down tools?
❤ This post is filled with over 10 freebies to m ❤ This post is filled with over 10 freebies to make your distance learning teaching life a little bit easier, because I have all the respect in the world for every single teacher out there doing their best.⁣
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I love adding new resources in my free resource li I love adding new resources in my free resource library! It's a small way to say thank you to those of you who follow me on my website. I truly appreciate you! If you are interested in joining, I'll add the link, but feel free to ask questions here too!⁣
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This list does not cover every reason why kids and This list does not cover every reason why kids and teens show challenging behaviors, but it's a reminder that there are often many reasons. Would you add anything?
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