Tips on Using Social-Emotional Learning Resources in Your Child Care or School

If there ever was a time to dive in and use social-emotional learning (SEL) resources in child care centers, schools and enrichment programs, now is that time. It seems obvious, but there has never been so much day-to-day uncertainty for children and adults – attending to and addressing the dynamics in play is key. SEL helps children to recognize and understand their emotions, feel empathy, make decisions, and build and maintain relationships. These skills are critical to learning and to student success, and key to early childhood development.

That’s why we put together a list of some of our favorite SEL resources to help educators, child care and out-of-school time (OST) program administrators:

SELspace

SELspace is divided into carefully considered modules to assist educators in integrating and addressing social-emotional learning.

Newsela

This resource lets you weave SEL into lessons and any existing SEL programs with content selected for elementary, middle and high school learners via real-world stories

QuaverSEL

With QuaverSEL, you can teach SEL through the power of music, in or outside of the classroom.

Common Sense Education

Common Sense Education provides a wide range of  apps, games and websites that can inspire empathy and compassion.

Additionally, the AfterSchool Alliance recently released a report that summarizes reflections, program examples and best practices that showcase the best of what out-of-schooltime programs have to offer in creating opportunities for youth to build social and emotional competencies. 

Leveraging Child Care Software to Support SEL

If you haven’t considered a child care management software solution, now may be a good time to explore it. For example, through Procare Solutions, child care administrators can streamline back and front office day-to-day operational work so that you can better support the families in your care. You can also use a child care software program to integrate with your SEL focus. Here are a few examples:

Lesson Planning

Teachers can easily set up SEL lesson plans and conduct assessments to help them focus on the appropriate milestones, all of which can be communicated back to parents in the form of student portfolios.

Parent Communication

Child care and OST staff can conduct mood checks during the day and share these check-ins with families in real time through an easy-to-use app. You can also share children’s activities and experiences, such as a story or picture about how a child helped another in need or was able to calm down after an altercation. With a parent engagement app, you can help your educators demonstrate to families who they are helping keep children to feel emotionally safe and secure, a key piece of SEL.

In addition, through custom newsletters, programs can summarize the week ahead to inform families about what’s to come or share success stories about what’s happened last week – all through a SEL lens. This makes it easy for staff to communicate about all that their program is doing to create a trusted, safe learning environment.

Learn more about how we can help enable you to create the most effective SEL experiences for the children you serve.  

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