How to use SEL Morning Meeting Questions
In recent years, teachers are realizing the value of teaching Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). While many teachers see the benefits and want to teach these important life skills, they aren’t sure how to incorporate them into their already full days. Plus, elementary teachers are already planning so much curriculum each day. SEL can feel like a whole new content area.
But there is an answer to how to easily add SEL into your weekly routine without adding extra planning and prep time! Use your Morning Meeting time!
It’s the perfect time because focusing on social and emotional learning first thing in the morning helps students to start their day off with a positive mindset. Research has shown that incorporating SEL into morning meetings can have a positive impact on classroom behavior, help students to develop problem solving skills and improve peer relationships. One option is using SEL Morning Meeting Questions!
1) Why is Social Emotional Learning Important?
Studies have shown that elementary students that get SEL today will continue to have a higher well-being until they are 18 years old! This means when an elementary teacher invests time teaching these valuable skills to a 7-year-old, that student will continue to use those skills for the next 11 years!
6 Benefits of Social and Emotional Learning for Students:
- 11% better grades and attendance
- increase in positive behavior IN AND OUT of the classroom
- increase in positive peer interactions
- increase in self-control
- increase in ability to handle stress and peer pressure
- develop “soft skills” for future occupations
In truth, I find these statistics to be so encouraging. As teachers, there are so many factors that are outside of our control. Do our students get breakfast every day? Do they sit on technology consuming inappropriate content for hours and hours at home? Do they have to work extra hard because of a learning disability? This list can go on and on. Sometimes it feels like we’re up against too much. But when we teach our students SEL skills, we teach them to do things like communicate their needs and concerns clearly, tackle obstacles and ask for help. This is huge and will continue to benefit them for years to come.
2) Where can teachers find SEL standards to teach?
As school districts are seeing transformations in students after social emotional curriculum has been implemented, many states have begun to release their own SEL standards to support and encourage SEL in their state. I currently teach in Ohio. Ohio has released comprehensive SEL Standards for grades K-12. They’er wonderful because the same standards stretch throughout the grade levels, but each standard becomes more complex as the age range goes up. Here’s an example:
They’re a valuable tool even if you don’t teach in Ohio. You can find them HERE. Many districts do not currently require teachers to use these, but highly encourage it.
Another powerful resource is CASEL. They have been working for years to advance SEL. Their website is FULL of resources & research.
3) How can teachers incorporate social emotional learning into their morning meetings?
The easiest way to make sure social and emotional learning is a regular part of your classroom is to make a plan to incorporate it into your daily Morning Meeting. At first planning SEL lessons and finding time to teach them each week felt overwhelming. Then, I realized by using SEL Morning Meeting Questions, I could save myself a ton of time planning and prepping.
Each week I follow a specific routine so my students know what to expect:
“Mindset Monday” – Each Monday our class receives a new mindset quote of the week. The students’ morning work is a paper with the quote along with a space to reflect on what they think the quote means. At the morning meeting, the class discusses what the quote might mean. The quote is also added to our Mindset Bulletin Board so it can easily be revisited throughout the week.
“What Would you do Wednesday” – Each Wednesday, students are given a social story that goes along with the quote of the week. They reflect on how they could use what they learned from the quote to solve or respond to the problem. At the morning meeting, the class shares their reflections and discusses.
I’ve created 52 weeks of mindset quotes and social stories. This is more than enough for the entire school year so you can pick and choose what best fits your class. Just implementing this routine into my morning meeting cut my SEL planning time to ZERO with very little prep time.
Here’s how: Before school started I simply printed all of the SEL bulletin board posters in color, laminated them and put them in a binder. Now I can use them year after year. Then, I copied class sets of about 20 weeks worth of the SEL Morning Meeting questions and quotes. I placed everything in my cabinet. Each Monday, I flip through the quote sets to see if a specific SEL quote seems to fit a situation my class has been facing. This means my Monday prep is literally 1 -2 minutes! When I’m almost out of copies, I copy enough sets to finish out the year. And that’s it! Easy-peasy!
The best part is that students collect these quotes in a folder throughout the year. At the end of the school year, they have a folder full of mindset quotes to keep!
You can get the 52 weeks of Mindset Quotes 2 ways:
- Join the Grace Over Grades Membership Community and get this resources along with hundreds of other resources and lessons. Learn more HERE.
- You can purchase just this resource in my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE.
Are you convinced that you need to implement
SEL Morning Meeting Questions & Quotes into your day!
After adding social and emotional learning for just a few weeks, you’ll see that it’s an important part of elementary school education and can help students learn to collaborate, problem solve, and form healthy relationships with each other. By using SEL morning meeting questions and quotes during morning meetings, teachers can give their students the skills and tools they need for success in the classroom and beyond.
If you enjoyed this post, don’t forget to Pin!
