A message from Sarah W...
Dear K-5 Families,
The specials class that I teach, “SEL with Sarah W,” kicked off last week and I so enjoyed working with each crew! At Anser, we support and foster each child’s whole development. In addition to academic growth, children also need skills to take on learning challenges, make good decisions, manage strong emotions, and get along with others. This social-emotional learning (SEL) is best supported both in the classroom and on the playground. In my role, I have the opportunity to teach and reinforce skills in both places. Our class session last week focused on safe play on our playground.
This week, I began lessons from Second Step Elementary, a research-based social-emotional learning program designed to improved children’s social-emotional skills. Second Step skills and concepts are designed to help children both in and out of school. Four units cover the following topics:
Growth Mindset & Goal-Setting: Children learn how to pay attention and manage distractions, develop a growth mindset, and apply goal-setting strategies to their social and academic lives.
Emotion Management: Children learn how to identify and label emotions and use emotion-management strategies - including stress management for older students - to calm strong feelings.
Empathy & Kindness: Children learn how to recognize kindness and act kindly, have empathy for others, take others’ perspectives, and recognize kind acts and empathy as important elements of building and maintaining relationships.
Problem-Solving: Children learn how to identify and state a problem, recognize if a problem is an accident, and use the STEP problem-solving process:
S: Say the problem
T: Think of Solutions
E: Explore the outcomes
P: Pick a solution
I’ll send regular communications through your child’s teacher and the Flight Plan, to help you reinforce Second Step language, skills, and goals at home. If you have any questions about Second Step Elementary, please don’t hesitate to contact me or your child’s teacher for more information. Thank you for your support as we work to build a safe and supportive school community.
Sincerely,
Sarah Wilson
swilson@ansercharterschool.org