Social and emotional skills enable people to recognize and manage their emotions, successfully cope with conflicts, understand and sympathize with others, establish and maintain positive relationships, follow ethics, make a constructive contribution to their reference communities, and set and achieve goals. They are often referred to as “Soft Skills.” Moreover, they can directly affect your career growth. What activities can help to develop them?

Students are accustomed to writing a lot. They continue to improve their writing skills after graduating from high school, either on their own or with the assistance of writing service reviews websites such as Writing Judge. While most of the time in class is spent writing essays, students should also focus on honing their social and emotional skills.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which students learn to recognize emotions, manage them, determine the cause of their appearance, and use them to solve problems. It is no less important than developing other skills, including writing, as it allows kids to be more effective and successful in society. If you are having trouble writing your essay, go to one of the essay writing service reviews websites to get assistance.

What Are Some Social Emotional Learning Activities?

Developing writing skills is unquestionably important because it affects the student’s professional life in some way. Nonetheless, writing is something you can delegate to professional custom writing reviews websites like Best Writers Online.

Among the socio-emotional skills are:

• Goals achievement. Working towards short- and long-term goals, including in a changing environment;
• Sustainability. Ability to perform tasks stably for an extended period;
• Self-assessment. Ability to monitor its state while a task is being executed;
• Striving for a goal. Awareness of the need to achieve the goal – independent or set by the teacher;
• Respectfulness. Tact and display of respect for peers and adults, including those from other cultures;
• Sociality. Ability to make and keep social contacts;
• Caring. Selfless assistance to a conversation partner.

Recognizing and comprehending emotions is the foundation of all social interactions. As a result, it is critical that students develop these skills from an early age. Here are some exercises to help teachers develop these socio-emotional skills in their students.

Activity 1. Emotions Dictionary

This activity is aimed at developing the ability to reflect and denote students’ emotional states, so they can better understand not only themselves but also others, increasing sensitivity and empathy for others.

Procedure:

• The teacher asks the students what emotions they already know and writes all the named words on the board without commenting on them.
• When the kids’ ideas are exhausted, the teacher draws a line under the list and adds some of his own.
• Following that, the teacher begins a discussion on each proposed emotion. He asks, “What is the sign of this emotion – Is it negative (unpleasant)/positive (pleasant)/neutral?” “Have any of you felt this way?” “What did you think of it?”
• The same questions apply to all words given on the list. If some words are unfamiliar to the children, the teacher explains what they mean and gives examples of situations where they are used. As homework, you can give children a set of pictures depicting different emotions, and a list of words that they must match with each image, or ask them to select images for a specific list.

Activity 2: Learning To Calm Down

This activity aims to reduce impulsive behaviour and teach children to respond more calmly, rationally, and prudently to emotional situations.

Procedure:

• The teacher explains that difficult situations may occur at any time (problems with the teacher, parents, classmates, friends, etc.), which they often want to start solving right away, even though they are not emotionally prepared for this.
• As a result, to solve the problem effectively, it is critical to maintain calm and self-control. The teacher asks students, “What do you think self-control is? In what situations do you have to use it? When did you have to do that for the last time?”
• The teacher then explains that when the human body “feels” that it is losing control of itself, it sends signals that are known as “sensory prints.” Someone gets a headache, twists their stomach, their neck swells, and their palms sweat. These signals can be unpleasant, but they are crucial because they alert us to the fact that we need to gather our thoughts and remain calm.
• After that, the teacher explains what one should do or say to himself to calm down and avoid escalating the conflict: “Stop and look around,” “Calm down,” take a deep breath through your nose for five counts, hold your breath for two counts, exhale through your mouth for five counts, and repeat these steps until you feel calmed down.

Activity 3. Keeping A Gratitude Journal

This activity encourages students to be grateful to others for their assistance and to respect them.

Procedure:

The teacher instructs students to begin a virtual or paper gratitude journal in which they will write responses to each day/week/month (optional).

Here are some examples of questions you could ask students:

• Describe someone who has had a positive influence on your life and why.
• Describe a hobby or activity in which you participate.
• Describe and justify a piece of music for which you are grateful.
• Describe a time in your life when you had a good belly laugh.

Final Thoughts

SEL development can be difficult in the early stages of integration with students. Especially in a virtual environment. However, over time, these activities will assist you in integrating social and emotional learning into your online learning and making self-care an integral part of students’ lives.