Produced with Scholar
Icon for Social and Emotional Learning for Kindergarten Students

Social and Emotional Learning for Kindergarten Students

PROMEHS (Basic - Kindergarten)

Learning Module

Abstract

In this learning module, the focus is on promoting well being in kindergarten students. They learn about emotions, relationships, a growth mindset and diversity through studying picture books and animations, participating in role plays, and carrying out acts of kindness.

Keywords

Growth Mindset, Giving, Emotions, Social Skills, Cooperation, Belonging.

PROMEHS Themes, Topics and Goals

Theme 1: Social and emotional learning

Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults understand and
manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions

Topic 1. 1 Self-awareness (See Activities 1, 2 and 3)

The ability to accurately recognize one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behaviour. The ability to accurately assess one's strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a growth mindset.

Goal 1: to identify and label basic and complex emotions

Goal 2: to develop self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-esteem

 Goal 3: to understand the relationship between emotions, thoughts and behaviours

Topic 1.2 Self-management (See Activities 3 and 5)

The ability to successfully manage one's emotions, thoughts and behaviours in different situations effectively motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal and academic goals.

Goal 1: to improve effective strategies to manage emotions

Goal 2: to develop persistence, motivation and commitment toward personal and academic goals

Topic 1.3 Social awareness (see Activities 4 and 6)

The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The ability to understand social and ethical norms for behaviour.

Goal 1: to develop perspective taking and empathy

Goal 2: to appreciate and value individual, social and cultural diversity

1: Self and Social Awareness

For the Student

Fig 1a: We love bucket filling!

Learning Intention: To understand what a bucket filler is.

Success Criteria:

  • I can listen to the story and participate in class discussions.
  • I can contribute to a Y chart (what does bucket filling look like, sound like, feel like).

Activity:

  • Listen to the story 'Have you Filled a Bucket Today?' 
  • Answer teacher questions about the book and try to participate in class discussion 
  • Y Chart and Think-Pair-Share: What does bucket filling: look like (add to Y chart), sound like (add to Y chart), and feel like (add to Y chart)

Learning Intention: To understand the reading strategy connecting and what it means to be a bucket filler.

Success Criteria: 

  • Share a personal connection to the text about a time when you filled someone's bucket.

Activity: 

Listen to the teacher explain and model what the strategy 'connecting' means.

Make personal connections to the story in a circle time using the sentence starter 'I was a bucket filler when I....' 

Fig. 1b: Have You Filled a Bucket Today?

For the Teacher

Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to the concept of bucket filling and its effects through the focus text, 'Have you filled your bucket today?'Teaching Tips

Teaching Tips:

The open-ended questions are designed to encourage students to think about the text and respond.

Making personal connections to the text is an important reading strategy to use when comprehending new texts 

Ask students questions:

  • What are you thinking about after listening to this book?
  • How did it make you feel?
  • What does a full bucket symbolise/mean?
  • How can you get a full bucket?
  • If you fill someone's bucket, why does yours become full too?
  • What sort of person do you want to be? A bucket filler or bucket dipper? Why?

Explicitly teach the cooperative learning strategy of Think-Pair-Share: Give students sufficient thinking time and encourage students to close eyes. Model how to turn knee to knee to someone near them and show partner you are listening. Model how to share with partner.

Resources

  • Y-chart 
  • Questions 
  • Text: 'Have you Filled a Bucket Today?'

2: Role Plays

For the Student

​Learning Intention: To understand the difference between a bucket filler and a bucket dipper.

Success Criteria:

  • I can help the teacher sort bucket filling and dipping pictures/examples.
  • I can contribute to and participate in a group role play giving examples of bucket filling and bucket dipping. 
  • I can identify bucket filling and dipping examples and discuss the differences and the effects of each.

Activity: 

  • Help the teacher sort bucket filling and dipping pictures/examplesand participate in class discussion about how you know it is filling or dipping. 
  • Complete the mirroring activities where you show facial expressions and hand gestures in role plays.
  • Draw an emoticon of how you feel.
Fig. 2: How did you feel?

 

For the Teacher

Purpose: The purpose of this activity is for students to deepen their understanding of bucket filling by identifying the difference between filling and dipping and discussing the positive impact that bucket filling has on themselves and others.

Activity: 

  • Use a concept attainment/sorting activity with pictures of bucket filling and bucket dipping. Ask students to help you sort them into the columns and ask questions: How do you know this is bucket filling/bucket dipping? What information in the picture tells you this? What can you see on the person's face that shows how they feel? 

Teaching Tips​

  • Make a teacher reflection at the end of the lesson: when you do something nice to someone, it makes them feel good and makes you feel good too. Sometimes they might do something nice back to you.

Resources:

Giving Picture Sort
Gestures and Role plays

 

3 How does it make you feel?

For the Student

Learning Intention: To understand the author's message in a text.

Learning Intention: To understand how being a bucket filler and/or dipper makes you feel and how it makes others feel .

Success Criteria: 

  • I can listen carefully to the story 'The Rainbow Fish'.
  • I can think about what the message in the story is.
  • I can reflect on how you and others feel when you bucket fill/dip.
  • I can communicate your thoughts in class discussions and drawings. 

Activity:

  • Listen to the story of 'The Rainbow Fish'.
  • Think-Pair-Share: What is the message in the story? (What is the author trying to tell us?)
  • Make another connection, this time to the text 'The Rainbow Fish'. Think about a time when you filled someone else's bucket. Then think about how it made you feel. Then think about how it made the other person feel. 
  • Draw a picture of your connection and next to it draw an emoticon with a facial expression to show how you felt, and an emoticon to show the facial expression of how the other person felt. 

 

Fig. 3: The Rainbow Fish

 

For the Teacher

Purpose: The purpose of this task is for students to understand that authors write for real purposes and that books can hold a special message for us. It is also to identify that there are only winners when it comes to acts of bucket filling; both the person doing the bucket filling and the person being bucket filled.

Activity:

  • Read the story 'The Rainbow Fish'.
  • Run a Think-Pair-Share: What is the message in the story? (What is the author trying to tell us?)
  • Tell students they will be practising the reading strategy 'connecting'. Remind students about what this strategy is and give an example.  
  • Model to students how to complete the connecting and drawing of facial expressions activity/worksheet  

Teaching Tips

  • Talk students through drawing their pictures and provide opportunities to discuss how they felt when they bucket filled. If students are having troubles remembering a time, give them an opportunity to fill a bucket in that moment (eg. say something nice to someone, share their pencils with the person next to them). 
  •  Students should come to the conclusion that when you fill someone's bucket you feel good about yourself and the other person feels good too. Only good things come from bucket filling - everybody wins. 

Resources

  • Text: 'The Rainbow Fish' 
  • Activity/worksheet for student connections and pictures (see worksheet below)
    How does being a bucket filler make me and others feel?

     

 

4: A Random Act of Kindness

 

For the Student

 

Fig 4: Kindness is a BIG thing

Learning Intention: To understand how to BE a bucket filler. 

Success Criteria:

  • I can discuss ways in which you could fill someone's bucket and add to a class list/brainstorm. 
  • I can practise random acts of kindness to a member of the class.
  • I can reflect on how this made you feel and them feel. 

Activity: 

  • Participate in a sea-saw activity, where you share with a partner the many ways you could fill someone else's bucket.
  • Contribute your sharings to a whole class discussion/list which can be later referred to for ideas.
  • Practise 'random acts of kindness' to your secret class member and try to fill their bucket each day.
  • Participate in a circle time at the end of each day about a) how you filled someone's bucket and b) how this made you feel and c) how you think this may have made them feel.

For the Teacher

Purpose: The purpose of this activity is for students to put into practise their understanding of 'Bucket Filling' and to learn how to fill their friends buckets and hopefully extend this to all other students, class, unit, wider school community and at home. 

Teaching Tips:

  • Every morning ask students in a circle time format, what their act of bucket filling might be. 
  • At the end of the school day re-form as a circle to share acts of bucket filling and reflect on the effects. Emphasise bucket filling in the playground.

Resources:

  • 'Random act of kindness examples/list for students to refer to and continuously get ideas'
  • An organised list of who students' secret person will be - think about pairing students up with children they would not usually work with 

 

5: Growth Mindset

For the Student

Learning Intention: To understand that not giving up when things are hard can help my learning.

Success Criteria:

  • I can watch and talk about two videoclips about not giving up when things are hard.
  • I can talk about words to add to our class drawing of a learning pit.
  • I can words to my picture of a learning pit.
  • I can be a bucket filler and give feedback to another student
  • I can talk about what I have learnt.

Setting goals and achieving them can be hard sometimes. If you wanted to become better at throwing a ball or roller skate, but found it too hard, would you give up? Watch this video to see what happens on Sesame Street.

Media embedded December 6, 2017

Think-Pair-Share: With a partner, discuss:

  • What things are hard on the videoclip?
  • What do the puppets do?
  • What things are hard for you?
  • What things are hard for you in your learning at school?
  • What things do you do when learning ....... is hard? (insert the thing that is hard for you)
  • Is it okay to say I am not sure or I don't know?
  • Can doing hard things make you smarter?

The Learning Pit

Whole class activity: When you are facing a hard problem, it's like you are in a learning pit. Look at the picture of the learning pit and talk about the words you think should go in the speech bubbles.

Now watch Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae.

Media embedded January 25, 2023

Think-Pair-Share:

  • What was hard for Gerald?
  • In the beginning were the other animals bucket fillers or bucket dippers? 
  • Did Gerald give up?
  • What did Gerald do to learn to dance?
  • Did the other animals change at the end of the story? Were they bucket fillers or bucket dippers?

Learning Pit

Cut out the sentence strips and paste them on your picture of Gerald in the learning pit. Show your drawing to a partner. Be a bucket filler and tell them one thing you liked about their picture.

Whole class reflection: Why is not giving up and trying hard important at school? Why is it important at home? When else is it important?

For the Teacher

Purpose: In this update students learn about not giving up and about the learning pit where challenges are faced and overcome.

Teaching Tips:

There are lots of resources and images of learning pits - also see Pinterest. Once you have co-created a learning pit with the class, display it so it can be referred to throughout the year. At any time, use the diagram to reflect on strategies students can use to help them climb out of the learning pit. For example, when struggling with maths, reading or spelling, identify specific mathematical, comprehension or spelling strategies to help them. Focus could also be made on personal qualities such as perseverance or changing mind sets. Use the following template as a guide to co-construct images of learning pits for Gerald and for students to complete individually.

The Learning Pit Template

 

 

6. Diversity

For the Student

Learning Intention: To understand how people all over the world are the same and different.

Success Criteria:

  • I can discuss a story with a partner.
  • I can survey students about their favourite things.
  • I can discuss how people are all special.
  • I can say hello in different languages.

Look at Whoever you are by Mem Fox.

With a partner in a Think-Pair-Share, talk about:

  • What are the people on the cover doing?
  • Where are they going?
  • Do the people all look the same?
  • Predict what you think the story will be about.

Now listen to a reading of the story:

Media embedded May 23, 2019

After reading, discuss:

  • What was your favourite page? Why?

Now find out how people in our class are the same and different. 

Favourite           you       another student another student
game      
food      
clothes      
book      
day of the week      
what makes you special?      

When you interview other students, make sure ask politely and smile. After they tell you, say thank you.

 Now look at your interview sheet and share it with another student.

  • How are people the same?
  • Does that matter?
  • How are people different?
  • Does that matter?
  • Are we all special?

Now let's learn how to say hello in different languages:

Media embedded January 25, 2023

 

 

For the Teacher

 

 

Purpose: To appreciate and value individual, social and cultural diversity.

Teaching Tips

Whoever you are
Children all over the world are very different, but they also have much in common. This book by author Mem Fox, celebrates the diversity in our world and the fact that, inside, we are all the same, wherever and whoever we are.

 

Acknowledgements

Title: (Source);  Fig. 1a: Bucket (Source); Fig 1b: Book cover (Source); Fig. 2: Emoticons (Source); Fig: 3: Cover of The Rainbow Fish (Source); Fig 4: Kindness (Source).