From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
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Social emotional health matters. WORD Workouts are a fantastic way to help students connect with their emotions. Additionally, these quick lessons promote student social emotional health. In these times, we know that helping students express how they are feeling can help them better cope with their emotions. Furthermore, better coping can open up the door to better learning as well. Additionally, when you add physical exercise to the mix, you’ve got an excellent brain break for your classroom which is much more than just a break.
WORD Workouts are a simple superpower that help you get the most out of the moments you have to help students reset, connect, and regroup. The free and simple WORD Workouts at wordworkouts.org can help you get started connecting to your students in new ways. Additionally, I’ll also share how WORD Workouts works and help you get started.
STEP 1: Start by picking your emphasis word.
What are WORD Workouts?
WORD workouts connect common emotional words, physical movement, and reflection to help students have a brain break and an experience that matters in the classroom. A daily WORD Workout is a perfect addition to every classroom. The promote good social emotional health in students.
Words Matter. They can lift us up or tear us down. The emotions in the WORD library represent common emotions that kids 4-18 feel every day according to educators. (See video.)
Physical movement helps. Sometimes students just need to get up and move. When meaningful words connect with intentional movement, it helps students consider important emotions that matter in their life right now as they reset and connect with their classmates.
Emotional connections engage students. When students reflect on their emotions, they can become more self-aware as they work to cope with the complex world.
3 Steps to Engage Students with a WORD Workout for Good Social Emotional Health
Step 1: Choose a Word
First, choose a word from the Pre-K – 12th grade WORD Workouts library that resonates with your classroom culture. Also consider what your students are experiencing right now. In particular, your insight as a teacher will help students move towards good social emotional health.
In this example, we’ll choose the word “SAFE.”
As the teacher, you can select from many words that will be appropriate for the age and stage of your classroom.
Step 2: Move
Play the 2-minute video. During the exercise, this video will connect the word with your students’ bodies. In this example, the students will learn what SAFE means to them and how it relates to their bodies as they experience the “SAFE” Workout.
Students participate in a workout based upon the word of the day.
Step 3: Reflect
In this step, students can choose from one of twelve question prompts to reflect as they think or to reflect in a writing assignment or journal. Then, these reflections will help students draw connections to how this emotion connects to their lives now.
Select a reflection question for student journals, discussion, or personal reflection. Furthermore, targeted conversations and reflection help promote good student social emotional health.
How can teachers use WORD Workouts in their classrooms to promote social emotional health?
- Elementary teachers use WORD Workouts as students transition from one subject to another.
- Middle and high school teachers use WORD Workouts during advisory periods or even in counseling.
- You can create collections of words around a topic. For example, the word could be an emphasis for your school or classroom during a period of time. Often, some schools emphasize a topic during a month. So, WORD Workouts makes it easy to quickly add the WORD Workout to your day relating to your theme.
- Some lessons can introduce a variety of topics from history to ICT. For this reason, explore the words to determine which ones fit with your upcoming lesson plans.
WORD Workouts make a fantastic addition to your classroom. I believe these lessons can improve and help students move towards good social emotional health.
The post 3 Steps for WORD Workouts to See Better Social Emotional Health and Learning appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
