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B U I L D I N G B L O C K S F O R S O C I A L- E M O T I O N A L L E A R N I N G
Whether you are supporting unstructured play or guided play, many teachers struggle to find the time to incorporate play in their rigorous academic schedules. See chapter 5 (page 223) to learn about how to plan for the various types of play within your daily, weekly, or monthly schedule.
6. SEL-Focused Partner or Group Games
Another interactive teaching strategy already embedded into classroom routines is group and partner games. As with play, these games allow students to naturally engage in SEL building block 2: reciprocal engagement. These games are also an avenue for directly teaching social-emotional learning skills to students. There are several ways to use partner or group games to either teach SEL skills or provide opportunities for students to practice these skills with their peers. In figure 4.14, we list five different ways to use partner or group games to teach SEL to elementary students. We will discuss each of these five ways in the following sections.
Social-Emotional Learning Partner and Group Games
TeacherCreated, Specific-SkillsFocused SEL Games
Purchased General SEL Games
Academic Games With Embedded SEL Focus
Traditional Board Games With SEL Add-On Game Features
Figure 4.14: Types of SEL partner or group games.
Games to Support Inhibitory Control
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Maria inwardly groaned as she watched Maggie and Daniel team up to play the mathematics partner game she’d assigned. She normally assigned partners to prevent this from happening, but she’d forgotten this time. I suppose, she thought, that this will be a good opportunity for them to practice their SEL skills. I hope there is not a big outburst. Playing games throughout the day tended to be a cause of problems with many of her students who want to win. For Daniel, games often caused frustration with waiting his turn, deciding who will go first, and playing fairly. Losing seemed to be so upsetting to him. Yet, Maria thought, games are a part of life, and being able to lose is a fairly critical life skill. I can’t just send Daniel to the office every time we are going to play a game, and I know that using games in mathematics can be a very powerful and effective teaching strategy. Something has to change here.
