Be A Socio-Emotional Detective

Funded Nov 30, 2022

Thank you so much for all the materials you provided. Thanks to you, I have materials for teaching my students socio-emotional coping skills and much more.

Working at a title 1 school, you know you will work with students who have experienced trauma and have other challenges at home. These challenges include language barriers and poverty. These students need support in academics as well as socio-emotional skills, but before even trying to access academics, they must be emotionally ready to succeed. All the materials that you gave me helped me do my job better. For example, when trauma occurs at a young age, children do not have words or do not know the meaning of what they feel inside. Therefore, it is hard to name your feelings later in life. When I meet with them to teach them about emotions and how to cope better with their frustration in the classroom and a conflict with a peer, Visuals like feelings charts help the student recognize and label their feelings. After working with these visuals, students can now tell their teacher how they feel instead of being frustrated and "acting out" in the classroom.

One of my favorite materials I am obsessed with is my copying skills board game. My students are too. We like to play scenarios at school or outside; they find the best ways to cope with difficult situations. I have a particular student who had difficulty finding the best strategy for a problem, and now this board game is his favorite. We play it all the time.

Other great resources are the ninja materials. The children in my school really enjoy playing with them. The ninjas help with all the emotions, and there is a ninja for every feeling and situation. We love to read their books and pretend we are in those situations.

And, of course, the books. Working at a school, you must have books that teach how to be friendly and promote healthy socio-emotional relations.

Some of my students need help understanding why they must do something or behave in a specific way or situation. For those students, I like to use "What should Danny do? This book is excellent in multiple ways. First, you do not read this book in a traditional way. You will jump to a different situation depending on your student's choices. My students love to go through the various options and learn why Danny does what he needs to. This book does not tell the student what to do but guides them through different choices, and they can realize the best option for their emotions as well as their interactions.

Children learn their best when their feelings are at baseline and their emotions regulate to absorb all the day's learning. If every classroom has the support I got from you, my donors, we will have emotionally healthy students ready to succeed. Thanks to you, my students are getting social-emotional support and can access their academic materials.

Thank you again.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Monard