Social and Emotional Developement:
Social-emotional development includes the child's experience, expression, and management of emotions and the ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships with others.
Things to include in your dramatic play area include:
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Pictures of your Children and Families
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Emotion Cards
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"Are You a Bucket Filler" Book
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Masks
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Emotional Development Color Chart
Name of Activity: How Are You Feeling?
Originating Idea: Emotions
Curriculum Area: Social and Emotional Development
Materials:
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Pictures of Children
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Clothes Pins
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Red, Yellow, and Blue Paper
Appropriate Age Group: 3-6 Years Old.
Beginning of Activity:
Read the children a story about emotions.
Make a chart with the children using Yellow - Happy,
Red - Mad/Angry, and Blue - Sad/Unsure.
Middle of Activity
Early:
Explain to these children what each emotion is and how it relates to them through out their day.
Middle:
Have these children grab their clip with their picture on it and have them add it to the emotion their feeling at that time.
Later:
Have these children grab and move their clips to the emotion their feeling. After they move their clip, ask them what their feeling and why.
End of Activity
Discuss with the children how their feeling in the morning. After the activity, go over how many children are feeling each color, and why.
Follow-up Ideas:
Add this activity to your circle time.
Go over it through out the day having the children change their color if their feeling different then the morning.
Name of Activity: Are You a Bucket Filler?
Originating Idea: Empathy
Curriculum Area: Social and Emotional Development
Materials:
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The book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?
Appropriate Age Group: 4-9 Years Old.
Beginning of Activity:
Read the children the book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?"
Middle of Activity
Early:
Talk to these children about making someone else happy!
Middle:
Talk to these children about making their friends happy when their feeling down. Being a bucket filler is about sharing, being nice, and helping someone when they need it.
Later:
Talk to these children about making their friends happy when their feeling down. Being a bucket filler is about sharing, being nice, and helping someone when they need it. Explain to these children about showing empathy towards other children and maybe asking them to share a story about when they helped someone and filled their bucket.
End of Activity
Asking the later children to tell their bucket filler stories, asking and following up with all the children about how they may have made someone feel really good.
Follow-up Ideas:
Add this book to your classroom library.
You can also use this activity as a follow up after the "How Are You Feeling?" activity.
Name of Activity: What Should You Do?
Originating Idea: Moral Development
Curriculum Area: Social and Emotional Development
Materials:
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Large Circle Time Paper
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Red and Green Markers
Appropriate Age Group: 5-8 Years Old.
Beginning of Activity:
Have the class brainstorm ways to tell whether or not something is the right thing to do(good thing) or the wrong thing to do(bad thing). List their ideas on the board. Compare their list with the one on the opposite page.
Middle of Activity
Early:
Have these children explain to you something good that they did today.
Middle:
Have these children explain to you something good that they did today. When they explain to you something that they did that was good, ask them why it was the right thing to do.
Later:
Have these children explain to you something good that they did today. When they explain to you something that they did that was good, ask them why it was the right thing to do. After they explain what they did right, ask them if they did anything they could work on. Something they may have done wrong, to hurt someone or to not share.
End of Activity
Discuss with the children how you can make sure that you are doing something right/good instead of doing the bad/wrong thing. Making right vs wrong choices in the classroom and at home.
Follow-up Ideas:
Teacher can use this lesson with either one of the lessons stated above. You can use it with the "Are You a Bucket Filler" and "How Are You Feeling?". If you use it with the Bucket Filler one, instead of asking if their a bucket filler, you can ask them it if was the right or wrong thing to do.