Develop the social-emotional learning skills your children need to succeed

We are excited to share the new voestalpine Educator Studio with everyone. The Van Andel Institute of Education worked with scientists to identify seven skills children need to succeed: collaboration, communication, creative thinking, critical thinking, curiosity, perseverance and self-direction. They then created resources and activities to help teachers develop these skills. You can find all the resources and activities they’ve created to help develop these skills in their new membership site, all year round for only $19.99! It’s perfect for grades K-8.

We invited Cara Vega, a fourth-grade teacher from Woodbury, New Jersey, to try out the VAI Educator Studio with her students. Read on to find out why she thinks it’s one of the most useful and engaging resource sites she’s ever used. With years of experience as a special educator, Kara knows the value of low-prep, high-impact tools that keep students engaged, making this platform a perfect fit for her classroom.

For which grade levels and subject areas do you think the voestalpine Education Studio is best suited?

VAI Educator’s Studio is best suited for students in grades K-8. It can be easily integrated into any core subject such as math, science, technology, ELA, and social studies. You can use resources and activities for morning meetings and structured brain breaks. You can also engage students with STEM-related inquiry activities and project-based learning concepts to easily meet learning goals and classroom engagement. So no matter what you teach, you can tap into one of the resources that help develop seven success skills: collaboration, communication, creative thinking, critical thinking, curiosity, perseverance, and self-direction.

This resource blends well with any other required standards. The main purpose is to provide students with the opportunity to learn seven success skills. These skills are important to teach students, but often there isn’t enough time to embed them, or the curriculum doesn’t do a good enough job at providing opportunities for students to develop these habits. Then, you as the teacher need to search on Google for hours.

How does developing skills for success help achieve curriculum standards?

Although the specific skills for success are not explicitly written into the curriculum standards, they are integral to success in every subject. Here’s how they’re related:

Why is it worth paying the price?

I’ve only been using this site for a few weeks, but I’ve already used it as a resource many times. One of the most important reasons I use this site is because I’m willing to pay one price for so many resources that I can count on being organized, easy to use, and effective. Otherwise, I find myself spending more money and time looking on the internet and often being disappointed after downloading an activity or resource.

How do you use VAI Educator’s Studio in your classroom?

1. Daily SEL activity calendar: I use the Daily SEL Activity Calendar often because it provides comprehensive and meaningful lessons in ways I hadn’t considered during morning meetings. It’s a quick, easy way to stay planned and prepared every day of the week.

2. Timely topics: Timely themes are great when you want to do something to celebrate a special day or holiday this month. I attended a haunted house event in October and we built a house out of marshmallows and toothpicks. In November, Macy’s hosts a fun Thanksgiving Day Parade event.

3. Positive potatoes: Positivity Potatoes is a really fun activity that emphasizes shouting out the positive things that are happening in our classroom. I printed out cute potato images and we wrote down the positive experiences we had in class on sticky notes. I then displayed them and told the students that we could add more sticky notes to the potatoes throughout the week. The kids loved it and after recess, they asked me for sticky notes so they could shout out the positive things they saw during recess and lunch. This is a simple and cool way to strengthen our classroom community and give students a chance to shout out to each other.

What are your students’ favorite activities?

My students love Emotional Quiz because they really enjoy performing it. The emotion cards I found used words like hostile, be inspired, optimisticand content. I love that it gives my students a way to increase their vocabulary and that the cards don’t rely on common emotions like happy, sad, and crazy. The emotion guessing game has two pages with 32 feelings on each page. It’s easy to cut out the cards and place them in a bucket for the kids to choose from.

I also like the “Simon Script for Mindfulness.” They provide me with an easy-to-read script that allows my students’ minds and bodies to focus on their breathing and energy levels. This activity can be used over and over again as it only takes about 10 minutes and is a great reset activity after a break or other overstimulating event.

By doing activities like this, I was amazed at how much all my students got involved. Even kids who are usually shy love being able to guess the emotion or write about the positive experiences they saw in Positive Potatoes.

How would you sum up your overall experience?

I love having all these amazing resources at my fingertips. As a busy teacher and self-proclaimed Type B person, I love that resources are readily available, easy to implement, and don’t require much prep time. I would definitely tell teachers that it is well worth paying for this membership as it provides you with a wealth of resources for developing important skills.

Is it easy to use and implement VAI Educator’s Studio in your classroom?

It’s easy to implement. I use it exclusively for morning meetings. I need the activity to be fast and have limited material requirements. The Games & Activities tab is the best place to look because all the slides and links are laid out for you. I was able to quickly filter the activities and find what I was looking for by filtering by grade level. This is a low-preparation, high-reward resource because it saves educators time but can big The difference.

Watch Cara’s video about her experience in VAI Educator’s Studio:

Teacher Picks is a sponsored program provided by We Are Teachers. All opinions shared in reviews are honest and based on the direct experience of teachers. To learn more about our guidelines and review process, click here.