Welcome back to the latest Social Emotional Learning Study Groups (SELSG+) monthly newsletter! As educators, we know August means the beginning of back to school – whether you’ve already started the new school year or you’re preparing to welcome students back, we want to take the time to wish you a happy, safe, and healthy school year with your students! In the spirit of welcoming our students back for another year of learning and growth, we wanted to dedicate this newsletter to building relationships. Building strong, positive relationships with our students can not only support student learning in the classroom, but also facilitate SEL growth for your whole class. Two ways to not only build rapport with students, but also establish positive relationships among students is through Warm Welcomes and Optimistic Closures. Warm Welcomes and Optimistic Closures are both considered Signature Practices for supporting SEL by CASEL and they are easily implemented into existing classroom schedules and routines. More information can be found in the 3 Signature Practices Playbook. Warm Welcomes: The purpose of a Warm Welcome is to set a positive tone by acknowledging students and preparing them for upcoming instruction and activities. Warm Welcomes do not have to take a long time, but can help students more smoothly transition into the next activity or task. Some examples of Warm Welcomes are:
To learn more about Warm Welcomes and for more specific examples of how to incorporate them in the classroom, check out pages 10 – 18 in CASEL’s 3 Signature Practices Playbook. Optimistic Closures: We all know that ending classroom instruction or activities can be abrupt or hurried. Incorporating purposeful, specific closures to the end of an activity or instruction can allow for review of important topics, allow students to share individual thoughts and opinions about the topics discussed, and allow for a transition to the next class or activity. While one type of optimistic closure could be sharing a positive affirmation (e.g., “I did a great job reading to myself today.”) or a highlight of the day (e.g., “I finished writing two paragraphs today.”), not all optimistic closure activities need to focus on positives. Other options include:
To learn more about Optimistic Closures and for more specific examples of how to incorporate them in the classroom, check out pages 36 – 46 in CASEL’s 3 Signature Practices Playbook. If you haven’t already signed up to have the monthly SELSG+ newsletter delivered to your inbox, sign up for our mailing list here: https://selsg.ua.edu! And be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and SEL resources
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