5. Social-Emotional Learning During Play

First So the character feels: So the character does…

First

The bus driver says the pigeon cannot drive the bus.

So the character feels:

The pigeon feels frustrated!

So the character does…

The pigeon throws a big fit!

Figure 4.13: Event, feelings, action graphic organizer (template and student example).

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free blank reproducible version of this figure.

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”

—Fred Rogers

Although there was no specific time to play in Maria’s first-grade classroom, she recognized that her students had a hard time sitting still for her lessons. If only they were as engaged with me as they are when they play house or soccer at recess, she often found herself thinking. Of course, that would probably lead to more frustration from Daniel. But what if I used these moments of play as a way to help him practice calming down, use strategies, and interact with his peers? Is play—when he is the most engaged—an opportunity to guide him in this practice?

Although we often focus on the academic aspects of the school day, from reading, writing, and mathematics to science and social studies, play is a key period during a child’s day where they are actively learning. Whether this is a free play period in a kindergarten classroom, indoor recess in a fourth-grade room, outside recess for fifth graders, or silly moments during second-grade lunch, students are often more actively engaged in their environment during play (Brown, 2009). The very nature of play allows students to engage in SEL component 2: reciprocal engagement (Porges, 2017). This makes these play periods the perfect time to capitalize on teaching and guiding social and emotional learning.

The first piece is to understand what play is and why it is important. Stephen Porges writes in the Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory that play is a “neural exercise” (2017). Play, he explains, allows us to naturally experience co-regulation, synchronous and reciprocal behaviors, and increase our social awareness. He states, “Access to the social engagement system ensures that the sympathetic activation involved in the mobilization does not hijack the nervous system, resulting in playful movements transitioning into aggressive behavior” (Porges, 2017, p. 22). In simpler terms, play allows our internal systems to experience a range of different emotions without being triggered into the fight, flight, or freeze response. Play is where we practice having our big feelings and where we develop our safe responses to those emotions.

In addition to its emotional component, play also allows us to develop our executive functioning skills of setting a goal, deciding, and revising the plan in order to meet the agreed-on goal. I (Ann-Bailey) remember watching a group of kindergarteners play in the housekeeping center during their free choice time. The group was playing that they were making dinner for a funeral, but they kept running out of food. They kept sending someone to the store to get more food. As an outsider, the play seemed monotonous, but the funeral theme of the play allowed the students to make sense of something that recently happened to them while also exercising their reciprocal engagement and executive functioning skills. By the end of their play they had covered half the classroom in items that represented food for the funeral. Together they decided on their goal (dinner for a funeral) and then worked together to gather anything they could that would make the meal just right, despite obstacles real (not enough toy food) or imaginary (not enough food for all the imaginary funeral guests).

Teachers can incorporate SEL during play in two ways: (1) supporting SEL during unstructured play, or (2) directly guiding play.

Supporting SEL During Unstructured Play

When teachers take time to observe children at play, without interrupting or guiding the play, they will have an opportunity to see a variety of skills in multiple learning domains (language, motor, social-emotional, cognitive-academic and executive function, and so on) in action. In addition to making observations during this time, teachers can strategically join in with children’s existing play schemes to add additional social and emotional learning themes that the child may otherwise experience in real life. If a group of students is playing in the classroom’s kitchen, the teacher can enter the play and add a new event for the students to react to. If a group of students are pretending to have a picnic, the teacher may add in that a thunderstorm is coming. Through the safety of play, the children will be able to experience reacting to the unplanned change and comforting each other from the storm. Perhaps the teacher pretends to be a family member coming home from school after a bad day, or acts out running out of milk and not being able to go to the store to get more.

When the teacher joins in the play, the teacher provides a natural opportunity for the children to playfully respond after processing the newly introduced imaginary emotional situation (SEL building blocks 2: reciprocal engagement, and 4: emotional regulation and executive functioning). In these examples, the teacher has joined the students as a play partner rather than as an adult integrating academics into play. The teacher’s role in these examples has not caused the students to shift from their pretend world to respond to the teacher as a teacher; rather, the students are able to respond from the safety of the pretend play. This allows for authentic problem solving and practice of SEL skills within the play.

Just as we challenge children with slightly more difficult reading books, we can challenge children to push beyond their current play schemes (Levine & Chedd, 2007). At times, the teacher can pause the play and suggest an event within the children’s existing, chosen play scheme. For example, the teacher might say, “Let’s pretend we are late for school and we can’t find our book bags. What will we do? How will we act? Show me the face you are going to use!” The students can then go forward with the play scheme, already having been given support and forward planning in the situation (SEL building block 4: emotional regulation and executive functioning).

When something upsetting happens in a child’s life, they will often process it through play. It is not uncommon to see a kindergarten student recreating a funeral during free-play periods after a grandparent has died, playing doctor to give a stuffed animal a shot after a traumatic flu shot experience, or even having dolls fight in a way that echoes an argument they overheard between their parents. It is important to not judge the play or tell a child they are being too mean in their play. Instead, adult observers or play partners can comment that, “Wow, you must be feeling really angry to want to hit that doll like that,” or “Your stuffed animal has some big feelings about not getting that flu shot! I can’t believe he wants to destroy the doctor’s office.” These comments do not pass judgement but rather draw the child’s attention to their larger emotion to help them process their feelings.

Older elementary students are not as likely to pull out a doctor’s kit to help themselves process a parent’s cancer diagnosis. Instead, provide students opportunities to role play different scenarios (which we discuss in more detail in the section “Directly Guiding Play,” page 188). Role playing games or different theater improvisation games can give older children the same sense of emotional release while allowing them to save face. With older students, teachers can also be aware of how their emotions will come out on the playground. After recess, allow time for the students to process their different emotions. Comment, without judgement, on what you observed: “You looked really angry after missing that goal. That looked pretty important to you. Do you need a moment to get a drink of water before we regroup in the classroom?” Your nonjudgmental observations allow students to recognize their emotions (SEL building block 1: self-awareness) and apply what you have taught them in the classroom.

Virtual Learning Tip

While the virtual environment can make unstructured play difficult, it is not impossible. In this case it will be important to communicate to parents the value of play. Encourage parents to support their child through optional assignments that involve playing together. They can recreate a story together by acting it out and filming it to share with the teacher. Older students can be assigned breakout rooms to create skits in the virtual environment. Interactive play over the computer screen can become as exciting as participating in an improv activity—students enjoy “taking” objects through the computer and pretending to use them before passing them back.

Directly Guiding Play

What is guided play? According to Tamara Spiewak Toub, Vinaya Rajan, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (2016), “Guided play maintains most traditional elements of play, especially the enjoyable and engaging nature and the child’s own agency but adds a focus on the extrinsic goal of developing children’s skills and knowledge” (p. 121). The authors describe guided play as being a balance between complete free play and direct instruction. Teachers can specifically set up play schemes for students to play out the social-emotional focus of the week. After a classroom reads a book, the teacher can provide toys or regalia that correspond with the story and make these available during play time or allow them to be accessed during reading workshop as a retelling station. The children can act out the story with the toy characters, emphasizing the characters’ emotional responses. This is a great opportunity for children to explore what it may feel like to have an outof-control tantrum like the pigeon in Mo Willems’s Pigeon series without actually having a risky emotional tantrum themselves. Often, when given access to toys to retell a story, children will begin with the original story and then change the ending. This exploration of alternative endings allows them to ask “what if” questions and explore alternative emotional responses of the characters. Teachers can support this exploration by asking children how the new ending changes the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and decisions (SEL building block component 4: emotional regulation and executive functioning), allowing students to openly explore in these areas to fully enhance their emotional learning. Guided play allows the teachers to informally assess and teach concepts and skills simultaneously in more than one learning domain (language, social-emotional, academic, physical, and so on).

I (Tracey) had the opportunity to work with preschool students in an elementary school. Each morning when the student came into the classroom, they would routinely put away their belongings and engage in networking time. This was a time they could take out play materials and engage in play, and they were encouraged to communicate with their peers (building block 2: reciprocal engagement). Sometimes I took the opportunity to just sit and watch them at play to get to know them better

(likes or dislikes) or take notice of their social-emotional strengths or areas of need. At other times, I would engage in their play schemes and use probing or guiding questions to either informally assess, teach specific mathematics concepts focused on essential mathematics standards, or build their mathematics background knowledge and vocabulary. When I made that shift from observer to play partner, the child moved from engaging in unstructured self or peer partner play to guided play with a teacher.

In one of my guiding play experiences, two students were in the play kitchen, and I joined in their play scheme. At first I observed to see what they were doing, and then I gradually began to engage in their play scheme. I posed carefully crafted questions directed at their essential mathematics standards (sorting and counting) and modeled prosocial skills (using manners, sharing, and so on). In this scenario, students began to bring me all kinds of foods to pretend eat. After I had about twenty items, I said, “Wow, there are so many things here, and I’m noticing they are all different colors. I wonder if we could sort all the food.” Immediately the students began to sort the objects by color, and I just sat back and observed. Next, I said, “Wow, I want to eat all the red foods! They look so yummy. Which ones do you want to eat?” The little girl took the yellow foods and the little boy took the green foods. Finally, I posed the question, “I wonder who has the most food?” In that moment, the students started counting their food items and communicating about how many they had and who had more. During this play experience, I was mindful to continuously model prosocial skills and behaviors. This didn’t take very long, and when I left the play kitchen area, I heard one of the students say, “How many more do you have than me?” In that moment I was able to observe that this higher-level question being posed was very difficult for both students and they were not able to accurately determine “how many more” one student had over another. In this little time, I was able to see them use their social, emotional, and cognitive skills and skills relating to sorting and counting, as well as determine their needed next steps in mathematics concepts relating to comparison.

Often when we hear the word play, we think of our youngest learners, but what about the older elementary grades? Where does play come in there? While older students may be unsure of letting go and free playing in a way that lets out their emotional responses, there are many opportunities to allow them to play as well. Offering them opportunities to write and perform skits is an excellent way to let them act out those bigger feelings. I (Ann-Bailey) once worked with a fourth-grade teacher whose students would not sit quietly or engage in work with her unless they were participating in skits. Putting them in groups and allowing them to write and perform skits suddenly opened them up to sharing about themselves in a way they otherwise avoided. Their skits around SEL or when they reenacted stories for their literature reflected their daily lives.

You can embed play through role playing into lessons by acting out different events from history, putting on skits to retell a story read aloud (or adding a new ending to a familiar story the class read), or even acting out word problems. Small, short skits can allow children to engage with the material or act silly or even angry within a controlled environment. We discuss additional detail about the use of skits in the section on “SEL Projects” (page 204). Role playing is also an excellent way to allow students to problem solve and practice different social-emotional scenarios. Include these role plays into your weekly social-emotional lessons and ask students to identify multiple ways to solve a problem, identify an emotion, or be a friend. Often, allowing a child with pent-up anxiety to act as the “wrong” example gives that child permission to let their feelings out in a controlled and appropriate way. While it is not OK to yell at a teacher, it is OK to pretend to yell at the play teacher in one of these skits.

A weekly or monthly “Creative Thinking and Building” time is one play approach for upper elementary students that has the potential to also incorporate academic learning. This is a time during the week or month where students are given time and materials (old boxes, empty plastic containers, empty paper towel rolls, tape, scissors, markers, string, and so on) to engage in engineering and creatively design and build something. This is where students get to be creative and practice using social skills while working with a partner or group of peers. It is also a time where students might get a chance to practice previously learned science and mathematics skills (for example, estimating, measuring, or using knowledge about force or simple machines). In these situations, students are provided with an open-ended challenge such as “make a bridge that can hold a human’s weight”—a direct instruction lesson on physics and engineering—and then given open-ended time to experiment with as many materials as they can. These labs lend themselves perfectly to developing the executive functioning skills of setting a goal, creating a plan to meet that goal, and pivoting from the plan as one becomes frustrated and recognizes that the original plan, materials, or goal was not going to work. While students are designing, building, and creating, the teacher is acting as a facilitator of social-emotional learning. The teacher can ask students to identify their goal and reflect on their plans to achieve that goal, comment on how the group is working together, recognize the emotional journey the students are on as they try and fail at their projects, and offer support for emotional-regulation strategies (SEL building block 4: emotional regulation) as students become frustrated. When students complete their creations, they can use literacy skills to write about what they created. They could simply engage in journaling about what was created or be guided to complete a more formal writing task during the language arts block. For example, if third graders are learning about persuasive letter writing, the students could write a persuasive letter to a company telling them why they should buy and sell what they made during their “Creative Thinking and Building” time.

Virtual Learning Tip

In the virtual setting, teachers can provide students with an openended challenge and a list of suggested materials students are likely to have around the house (such as cardboard cereal boxes, paper towel tubes, and newspaper). Students can create their projects in front of the camera while they work together, and the teacher is able to label and coach them through the executive functioning and selfregulation skills they are using. Alternatively, students can work on these projects during their asynchronous time and share their final projects when they return to the synchronous digital classroom.

Table 4.2 is a chart that shares examples of guided and unstructured play in various situations. Please note that we are not limiting play to these few areas; rather, this is just a sample so you can begin to see what guided or unstructured play might look like for your students.

Table 4.2: Opportunities and Examples of Play Throughout the School Day

Topic

Retelling or Reenactment Play

Guided Play

Teacher provides figures to act out a story with a group and participates in the retelling. The teacher may act out one of the characters or be the narrator to start the story.

Mathematics Games The teacher assigns partners to play a specific game or offers the choice of specific games to play during a set amount of time. The teacher may monitor the game to ensure the students are on task and playing the game the correct way. The teacher may play with the students and model good sportsmanship, turn taking, and fair play.

Dramatic Play A teacher assigns students into groups and provides a general topic for the students to write and perform a skit around. The teacher may sit with a group to help them plan out the skit.

Makerspace or TinkerLab The teacher provides instruction on an engineering or physics topic and then gives the students a challenge with set parameters. The students are given a set amount of time to use the materials in the makerspace or lab to fulfill the challenge.

Unstructured Play

The teacher provides figures that correspond with a book the class has read but does not stay in the area to guide the play. The students may use the characters to act out the book exactly, or may alter the story of the book, change a character’s response to a problem in the book, or have the characters experience a new challenge. During an open-ended block of time, students are allowed to access the mathematics games they are already familiar with. They choose their partners and may play the game as assigned or may create their own rules or variations. Students can also be given opportunities to create their own mathematics games using the skills they have learned. Teachers can provide a bin of materials that students may want to choose from when creating their game (blank gameboards, blank spinners they can write on, dice, and so on). A group of students forms independently and creates a skit, play, or dramatic performance around a topic of their choice. The students may choose to record themselves outside of the classroom and share it with the class.

A teacher provides students open-ended time in the makerspace or TinkerLab where they can explore the materials and create whatever they want.