Sadly, life is hard for so many students. Whether dealing with a rough home life or not feeling like they have friends, everyone has their struggles. Students must have support as they deal with these challenging emotions and thoughts! They need to learn how to build communication skills, the importance of having empathy for others, and how to compromise. So, all educators must know why social and emotional learning matters. By incorporating social-emotional learning into lessons, students will learn how to handle their emotions and be productive members of society.
Changing the Lives of Students
Teachers can have a life-changing impact on students. They can inspire and encourage them to pursue their dreams, and they have the power to teach them essential social skills, such as sharing and collaboration.
Students learn that social and emotional learning matters using the “I Can Read” Notebooks. For example, teach the rhyme, “I Will Not Use My Hands or My Words for Hurting Myself or Others.” These carefully chosen words may forever be on the walls of a child’s mind.
Additionally, experiences with “The Wrinkled Heart” poem help children to be more sensitive to words and feelings. This allows them to learn, “…It’s hard to mend a wrinkled heart.” This is essential when building empathy in students!
The “Pledge of Allegiance” will forever hold deep meaning if students learn to sing and perform it together in sign language. A rich oral language curriculum is necessary to nurture happy, confident young people who know how to be kind.
Drawing Personalizes Meaning
Poetry Notebooks are not a one-size-fits-all, color-in-the-picture approach to literacy! Children celebrate language with drama, dance, movement, and sign language. So, learning to channel their emotional response to life’s different challenges is essential when striving for excellence. By teaching that social and emotional learning matters through a talented and gifted model, students learn about connections. In other words, they learn to focus on details and how to connect the heart.
Memorizing Poems Builds Oral Language
Poetry Notebooks for kindergarten and primary students are often student books of choice for buddy reading and reading to self. So, teachers use them to build oral language and reading fluency for diverse learners. The “I Can Read” pages even nurture the bonds of friendship, teach social-emotional skills, and reinforce essential academic concepts. Best of all, students learn the crucial “I can do it!” attitude with an intentional focus on oral language fluency.
Key Information about Social Emotional Learning
Wise educators know why social and emotional learning matters. If you are unsure, consider these key facts.
- Emotional well-being is critical to academic success and success in life. It must become part of learning and build on meaningful family connections.
- Social-emotional learning underlies everything we do. We want children to learn to be good friends, work hard, and be curious. Additionally, we want students to practice kindness and develop a positive “I can do it!” mindset.
- When we bond with our students and make happiness happen in the classroom, children will feel accepted and valued. Social-emotional skills and friendships blossom.
- Memory skills, broad vocabulary, and confidence in expressing ideas begin with a rich oral language curriculum. This includes opportunities to talk, sing, dance, play, and tell stories.
- We want children to develop a good work ethic. It is vital that they see themselves as good thinkers, problem-solvers, readers, writers, illustrators, storytellers, creative kids, and makers of things! That necessitates having an authentic, meaning-centered curriculum.
- With happy hearts, we dance, sing, and memorize delightful language! A thoughtful, creative, art-rich curriculum nurtures capable, kind, and confident young people.
- Singing, dancing, dramatization, sign language, and art provide Total Emotional Body Response to Language (TEBRL). That’s how the brain learns best. It is the secret of accelerated learning and powerful Social-Emotional Learning.
- Positive discipline with meaning-centered learning in a caring classroom is a richly rewarding teaching method. It is our contribution to happier schools and healthier communities.
Poetry Notebook Resources
Poetry is a fantastic way to show why social and emotional learning matters. Thankfully, there are excellent resources to help.
The “I Can Read” Poetry Notebook Bundle includes over 200 activities and songs, poems, and rhymes for every month.
You can even try the November “I Can Read” Poetry Notebook to see the fantastic growth of students in your room.
Be sure to try the FREE Friendship Sampler!
Students will experience so much in life. So, they must understand why social and emotional learning matters. By building this awareness, they will be better prepared to tackle anything that comes their way.
