For elementary students to be successful in school and later in life, they need to possess social, emotional, and academic skills. Social Emotional Learning helps kids in elementary school to manage their emotions, build healthy relationships, make responsible decisions, set and achieve goals, and show empathy to others to create a caring community.

This curriculum was written with the CASEL SEL Core Competencies as the spotlight, which includes: self-management, self-awareness, social-awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. This curriculum meets American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Standards for Students, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) standards, and Common Core Standards 21st Century Skills.

This curriculum was created to introduce skills needed to create a caring community at school, home, and their community. Students can’t learn when they are in an environment where they do not feel safe. When students work together to create a caring community at school, everyone has a better opportunity to learn and grow.

Each lesson starts off with the Existing Knowledge activity, which includes 3 multiple choice questions for students to answer to give educators an idea of the existing knowledge that the students have about the lesson topic. Students can answer these questions on their own devices and the system automatically checks the answers that the students submit, and provides a report on students’ answers for the educator.

Next, students watch a whiteboard animation, which introduces the topics and the concepts of the lesson. In this curriculum, whiteboard animations are 90 seconds to 2 minutes long. We chose to use whiteboard animations because they increase retention as students are anticipating what is being illustrated.

Following the lesson’s whiteboard animation, each lesson has a lyric music video. Each lesson includes an original song written towards the concepts of the lesson. Each music video also includes displaying of the lyrics as they are being sung so students have the opportunity to absorb the information visually as well as auditory.

Using music to teach Social Emotional Learning (SEL) really elevates the understanding of these skills and students’ ability to create a caring community. Not only does music help students to retain the information, but it can also help students connect with each other and is a great cultural bridge – uniting students through the universal language that is music.

After students have learned about the topics through the whiteboard animation and lyric music video, students are then given the chance to share with each other their thoughts in the discussion questions. This really gives students the opportunity to connect with other students. For this age level, we suggest having students complete the discussion questions in a large group where the educator verbally asks students the questions. However, students are also able to answer the questions individually and submit their answers in a text box under the questions. Their answers will then be submitted to the educator when they click next to go to the next activity in the lesson.

Next, educators get the opportunity to really tailor the lesson to fit the needs of their students. The Drill Down activities allow for differentiated instruction so that all students get the opportunity to fully understand the concepts. For this age level, we really tried to supply a variety of activities for each lesson that allow for kids to express themselves creatively, continue discussion, play games, and other ways to further their understanding of the topics.

The last thing students will complete in the classroom is the Exit Ticket activity. This consists of the same 3 multiple choice questions as the Existing Knowledge activity at the beginning of the lesson. This helps educators to track student learning from the beginning of the lesson to the end of the lesson.

After completing the lesson in the classroom, the parents and guardians of the students will receive an email with a link to click on to complete the School Home Partnership. The School Home Partnership activity consists of having students watch the whiteboard animation with their parent or guardian and then answering two questions together. We created this activity to be a small time commitment for families, but still sparks those important conversations at home. This also helps to create consistency between school and home.

Below are a list of topics covered in Rock Digi’s SEL and Life Skills for Success curriculum for Grades 2-4.

1. Accepting Others
2. Empathy
3. Don’t Be Hatin’ (Bullying Prevention)
4. Anger Management
5. Pursue What You Love
6. You Can Do It! (Goal-Setting)
7. Safe and Supported (Positive Self-Talk)
8. I’m Alright (Self-Acceptance)
9. Do the Right Thing (Review of Previous 8 Lessons)