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Teachers are an integral part of supporting children’s academic, social and emotional growth. Social-emotional learning (SEL) activities for elementary school students give them the tools to understand their feelings and make thoughtful choices. These activities also strengthen classroom connections through community building. It only takes a few minutes a day to create an emotionally rich, ready-to-learn classroom.
Connect with SEL activities for children
Simple SEL activities in elementary school can help students examine their feelings and increase emotional awareness. Get everyone ready to learn during morning circle time and start the day on a good note.
- Unleash your superpowers: Students choose a superpower for the morning, such as a courage boost or a kindness shield, and discuss how they will use it to practice self-management.
- Turn your feelings around: In a circle, students share challenging emotions they are experiencing and combine them with regulation strategies, such as asking for help or stretching.
- Entering a still state: For a quick mindfulness warm-up, have students sit quietly and notice three different sounds in the room.
- Predict how you will feel: Help students build self-awareness around their feelings by having them describe their current emotions using weather terms.
- Start a goodwill mission: Give students a small task, such as making new friends or helping a classmate, to develop responsible decision-making skills and empathy.
Confidence Activity: Confidence SEL Discussion Prompts for Consultation
Counselor Kerry
Grade: 4th-6th grade
Help your older students examine what confidence looks and feels like with flashcards. Use the Confidence Card prompts to spark discussions about self-esteem, reflect on past experiences, and increase feelings of connection.
Express emotions through art and drama
Elementary school students are just beginning to explore self-awareness and self-management. Young children also begin to learn interpersonal skills. These simple art and drama prompts are easily adaptable to any grade level morning group, small group counseling, or incorporated into a calming corner idea.
- Create an emotion card: Students draw their current feelings on cards and share them with a partner to discuss healthy ways to manage these emotions.
- Music mood matching: Students choose a song that reflects their current mood and write it down, helping them connect and express their feelings.
- Build goodwill: Through dramatic play and body movement, students explore what kindness looks and feels like in action.
- Reflect Me with Emotional Portraits: Students draw how they are feeling now and then create a second portrait showing how they want to feel, using color and expression to reflect the emotion.
- Create an emotional whirlpool: Students use swirling, curling, or sharp brush strokes to express their current emotions in landscape or abstract compositions.
- Model for the Master: Display works by moody masters such as Van Gogh or Picasso and have students emulate the style to express their own moods.
Theatrical Performance Bake Shop for Social Emotional Learning – Kindergarten Center
Author: Namastan School 1
Grade: Pre-kindergarten to second grade
Create a centerpiece by transforming your calm corner into a dramatic play center with simple self-regulation tips. This 92-page PDF resource includes editable templates, setup suggestions, character name tags, open and close flags, game currency, and more.
Pause for a moment of mindfulness
Mindfulness helps enhance primary school children’s focus and improves their emotional awareness. It also lays the foundation for healthy mental habits that will accompany them as they grow into SEL activities in high school.
- Time Travel Breath: Students explore the different types of breathing in each “era,” such as when dinosaurs roamed the earth or the space race era, as a fun mindfulness moment to center themselves and calm themselves.
- Firefly hour: Students close their eyes and imagine their bodies as fireflies, watching their light slowly dim and brighten while following the movement with their breath.
- Blow the bubbles with your breath: Students imagine holding bubble wrap in their hands—squeezing and inhaling deeply to “pop” the bubbles, then exhaling slowly to release the bubbles, helping them practice controlled breathing and concentration.
Affirmation Stations – Mirror Printout – Learning Neutral through Ms. Lane
Study with Mrs Lane
Grade: K-6
This resource can help you build a confirmation station. It provides you with printable affirmations to place around the mirror to help students see their own worth and replace negative thoughts with positive ones. It includes tags, affirmations, “I am” templates, and blank templates.
Building community through SEL philanthropy programs
Every classroom becomes stronger when kindness is integrated into everyday life. These SEL-friendly team-building activities for kids help students turn empathy into action while creating a supportive, connected community. They can easily be incorporated into transition and group projects, or used as part of a gratitude activity for kids.
- Create a compliment constellation: Create a star sign bulletin board where students add a star every time they receive a compliment or compliment someone else to visually celebrate kindness in the classroom.
- Send a love card: Students create greeting cards for classmates or faculty and mail them weekly, spreading positivity and strengthening relationships.
- Assemble a kindness puzzle: When students are challenged, they write their name and a kind word on a blank puzzle and add it to the class puzzle. Over time, the class built a collaborative “puzzle of kindness” that represented their community of support.
Random Acts of Kindness Challenge Cards – Freebies provided by counselor Chelsey
chelsea counselor
Grade: K-5
Challenge your students to perform random acts of kindness every day with kindness cards. These 15 cards provide students with simple challenges that are easy to complete during recess or lunch.
Collaborate on real-world problem-solving tasks to develop solutions
Use real-world problem-solving activities during SEL time, morning meetings, or any time the class needs to collaborate quickly to get everyone thinking and connecting.
- Design a kindness map: Have students map out areas in the school where someone might need help or kindness.
- Resolve conflicts between classes in school: Provide students with a common recess scenario to work through in ways that may lead to problem solving and communication skills development.
- Invent a kindness machine: Have students work in groups to brainstorm ways to build a machine that can provide kindness to everyone in the class. Have them draw prototypes.
Solving Puzzles (Social Skills Resources!)
Author: Elementary school counselor – Rachel
Grade: second grade to fifth grade
In this resource you will find directions, 12 questions with three possible solutions, puzzle pieces, a blank puzzle template, and an exploration consequence sheet. Students can also use discussion questions to collaborate while viewing positive and negative consequence posters.
Reflection through SEL activities for primary school students
Reflection fits naturally into ELA writing time and short class check-ins. Use simple SEL activities for elementary school students to help them pause and express their feelings in meaningful ways.
- Document your journey: Use prompts to help students reflect on how they felt during their day or week, encouraging them to consider what they learned from their emotions.
- Write a mood poem: Students choose an emotion they have experienced during the week and write a poem to express that feeling.
- Become a character: Students imagine themselves as storybook characters and reflect on how their feelings shape their school story.
- Create a feeling flipbook: Students list some simple emotions and note what makes them feel that way. They can consult flip books to track and express emotions during check-ins.
- Write a letter to your emotions: Students choose a strong emotion they have felt during the week and write a letter about it.
Check-in and Check-out Forms for SEL Needs | Feeling, Emotional, and Behavioral Support
Author: Coconut Counselor
Level: Not specific
Check in with your elementary student using the simple check-in and check-out form. Older students might write about their reflective feelings or emotional needs, while younger students might respond aloud to prompts about how friends and family are getting along.
Add simple SEL activities to your classroom
SEL doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Even a few minutes a day can give students a chance to notice their feelings, share their thoughts, and strengthen classroom community. Simple SEL moments can go a long way in helping children feel connected and ready to learn.
- Do deep breathing exercises.
- Stretch for one minute.
- Feel free to give a compliment.
- Write a thank you note.
- Share a happy thought.
- Try to check in early in the morning.
- Give an emotional exit ticket.
- Share a goal setting sheet.
- Play the “this or that” game.
- Try “Two Truths and Lies.”
- Students are asked to find friends who meet certain criteria.
- Create a praise circle.
Cultivate a growth mindset and relationship effectiveness through SEL
Research shared in the Psychological Bulletin shows that SEL has a statistically significant impact on improving student attitudes, prosocial behavior, and academic performance. When students are given the opportunity to talk about their feelings and pay attention to what triggers them, it can help them manage their emotions in healthy and appropriate ways.
In addition to supporting self-management, SEL helps children strengthen relationships, reduce conflict, and develop responsible decision-making skills. SEL activities for elementary students also allow them to reflect on their actions and understand the consequences.
Bringing SEL to the forefront with TPT events
Integrate SEL into every area of your curriculum so that it becomes a natural part of your daily learning. Students can reflect on their emotions, strengthen writing skills, and solve real-world problems in subjects such as science, while building a strong, connected classroom community. TPT is here to support your class with essential SEL resources. Make social-emotional learning a meaningful and impactful part of every school day.
