Spotlight on Social-Emotional Learning

February is the perfect month to focus our attention on social-emotional learning (SEL). The feedback we hear most often from Superkids teachers is how much their students love the characters and their stories—whether the plot is a triumph or a challenge. This affection for the characters creates amazing opportunities to nurture students’ SEL skills. This issue will explore how to integrate SEL teaching and practice with your Superkids instruction. You will also find resources to expand upon the SEL foundation you’ve already established.

As you likely know, the Superkids characters are the heart of the program. Students identify with the characters because they may see themselves reflected in one or more of them. The characters’ abilities and challenges develop in sync with students’ abilities and challenges, and their stories mirror what may be happening in your students’ own lives.

These stories lend themselves to conversations that contribute to the development of social-emotional skills. Highlighting the healthy interactions the characters have with one another—and how they work together to solve problems or resolve disagreements—can support your students’ growing relationship skills and self-management skills. Discussions about how the Superkids overcome disappointment, face difficulties, show empathy with one another, and take responsibility for their actions can nurture social awareness, self-awareness, and responsible decision-making in your classroom.

The Lasting Lessons, provided in your Teacher’s Guides, offer questions, activities, and conversation starters about the Superkids stories and help students relate the lessons the characters are learning to their own lives. These guided discussions and activities provide opportunities for developing the five interrelated areas of competence set forth by The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

In the past, we have shared Superkids freebies connected to social-emotional learning. Find four of these super resources below in case you missed them!

New! The Superkids Social-Emotional Crosswalk was developed to help Superkids teachers reinforce and expand SEL instruction while teaching the program. You will find supplementary content for every Lasting Lesson K–2. The crosswalk provides the title and description of the student text, the Lasting Lesson with its Teacher’s Guide page number, the related CASEL competencies, a writing/drawing prompt for student reflection on SEL themes, and an extension activity to build on the SEL skills.