We had a big focus on social stories and visuals to help remind and teach students about their emotions. Social stories and regular morning check-ins using posters helped recognize emotions in ourselves and each other.  Kindergartens recognized emotions such as embarrassed, shy, sorry, angry, sad etc. 

We explored ideas and activities to focus and build self- awareness skills such as using videos with read alouds as part of transition times; building on mood meter skills; continuing to use faces to teach emotion recognition and expression; and connecting feelings with the body. Strategies such as NOTICE- NAME-NURTURE and CONNECT-MODEL-TEACH can support students in incorporating their SEL skills into everyday activities and assist in transfer of learning.

After stories, the primary students did the following activities:

• Big Feelings Come and Go: Very long, feelings like clouds, they are there and they pass by and will pass by.. They can have negative emotions and know they will pass by.
• Connecting experiences to emotions, finding strategies, and walking through how they handled the situation.
• Scribble worry monsters on a paper: Scribbled on one side, other side focus on student worries and topics on their mind.

An Insight Timer is also used for soothing voices and relaxation for students when they are in the library to help them regulate before an activity. 

With regular check-ins, visuals and conversations, they can begin to recognize and understand many other emotions around them.