SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL Intelligence: regulating feelings & working together
Building a Feelings Vocabulary.
Throughout the school year third graders work to build their feelings and emotions word vocabulary. By discussing and listing feelings words they are familiar with and finding synonyms for happy, sad, mad, and calm, the feelings and emotion word vocabulary quickly grows. On the very first day of school the third graders have a chance to brainstorm these words and talk about how to recognize emotions on the faces of people. Then each student can draw a self portrait that answers the question "How did you feel on the night before third grade?" |
The Mood Meter.
Part of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence's RULER program, the mood meter helps children plot their emotions on a scale of pleasantness and energy. It brings awareness to the emotions of individuals and gives the act of expressing emotion normalcy. As a class we use this tool in many ways. Sometimes it helps to think about what kind of energy and pleasantness would be best for a certain activity - for example to listen to a read aloud we probably want to be somewhere in the high green (very pleasant, but not super high energy). We can also come up with strategies to move between the quadrants, helping to regulate emotions throughout the day. |
Class Charters and Agreements.
During our first week together, the children began to think about how they wanted to feel at school. Then they thought of actions that would make them have those feelings. After several conversations we turned this list of ideas into a charter or agreement on how we expect ourselves and our friends to act at school. The children put their expectations into their own words to write the charter and we posted it on the wall as a reminder of our agreement. This kind of activity, giving the children the control to come up with expectations as positive statements, helps to build a classroom community based on mutual respect and emotional safety. |