Safe & Caring Schools PreK - K

Book Description

Book with CD-ROM

The Safe & Caring Schools^® teacher activity guides support the standards from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) for the infusion of social and emotional learning into the classroom. Those key competencies are: Awareness of Self and Others, Positive Attitudes and Values, Responsible Decision Making, and Social Interaction Skills. In addition, the material correlates with standards for social studies, language arts, health, and other areas of the curriculum.

Safe & Caring Schools helps you provide social and emotional learning (SEL) in classrooms to improve student dynamics, school climate, and academic achievement. A 2007 research report, “The Effects of Social and Emotional Learning on the Behavior and Academic Performance of School Children,” shows that students who were exposed to SEL were better behaved, had less anxiety, and had more positive attitudes than those who were not part of SEL. In addition, even though incorporating SEL activities required time in the school day, it did not negatively affect students’ academic performance; in fact, their scores on standardized tests increased 11 percentile points.

Safe & Caring Schools offers:

• Easy-to-use lesson plans with more than 100 activities per teacher guide
• Nine flexible themes to use monthly or as individual, stand-alone lessons throughout the year
• Character-based teaching and learning on such topics as integrity, respect, responsibility, honesty, persistence, accountability, bullying prevention, and anger and conflict management
• Classroom-tested reproducible activity sheets for positive reinforcement, available in teacher guides and on included CD-ROMs
• Literature-based activities that pair suggested books with every lesson to integrate learning across the curriculum
• Helpful tips for organizing a schoolwide program
• Group-graded materials (PreK–K, Grades 1–2, Grades 3–5, Grades 6–8) and large, bold posters that reinforce key concepts of the program

Use the PreK–K Guide to teach young children positive life skills through daily practice. The activities teach the whole child by allowing them to be curious, active, imaginative, and part of the learning process. This guide helps teachers work within a framework toward specific goals, but also encourages them to be creative in helping children express themselves. Themes developed during the year:

• Learning about me and my safe and caring school
• Discovering my feelings and the feelings of others
• Caring people
• Respect for myself and others
• Bullying
• Cooperation
• Getting along with others
• Making good choices
• My talents and the things I can do

“It is not only our jobs as counselors, teachers, and administrators to help foster social skills, it is absolutely the number one priority we need to be looking at right now. And Safe & Caring Schools helps us do that. It makes our job that much easier.”—School Counselor

Part of the Safe & Caring Schools Series - Item 3403