Teaching SEL through Picture Books
By Karveena Atwal
 
The Casel (2017) resource, describes Social Emotional Learning as the way adults and children learn to manage and understand emotions, show empathy for each other, set goals, make responsible decisions and establish positive relationships.
 
I will begin to share ideas on picture books I believe to support Social Emotional Learning in children, youth and adults. This blogs focus will be on the picture book:

Red A Crayons Story by Michael Hall 

Lesson 1: Identity Focus: Core Competency on Self-Awareness & Social Awareness
Pre-Reading: Use loose parts to have students create & discuss with peers all of the things that make up “Who they are” example-sports, hobbies personality, family, culture, etc.
OR a comic strip to describe themselves as a character in their own story of who they are. Example Scene 1- Me and my family, Scene 2- Me and my Sports/Hobbies etc.
 
Students may fill in the sentence: What makes me different/special from others is ___________
 
Have a gallery walk or mini groups where students can use communication to share their identity through the use of loose parts or comic strip.
 
You might ask students to bring in objects/artifacts that describe their identity and have a group classroom share. In the past, I have created identity boxes where we used a shoe box to describe our identity. In the box included flags of country of origin, immigration/migrating factors, photos of cultural foods, lists of family traditions and cultural/religious inclusions etc. We were able to make cross-curricular connections to Social Studies and Literacy.

 
Part 2- Use the Metacognitive strategy Inferring: What might this story be about? What do you notice about the cover of the book? (You might prompt the younger audiences to take a close look at the crayons and what the word says on crayon.)
 
Read the story Red A Crayons Story by Michael Hall

Post-Reading: Discussion Questions/Lesson ideas:

1. How might Red have felt knowing that others saw him as Red when he was blue?
2. What does the word stereotypes mean?
3. Can you think of some stereotypes that people might have about you from the outside?

 

1. Teacher can share an example about themselves with classroom:  Example: From the outside people might view me as... indo-canadian and able to cook curries, but really, I have never cooked a curry in my life, and I like to cook shepherd’s pie.
2. Each student can share the following prompt “Someone who looks at me might not know…..”
3. How do you think it feels to have stereotypes of who others think we should be? (You might make a cross-curricular connection to Aboriginal Education (AbEd), What does Assimilation mean? How might it have felt for students going to residential school to have to assimilate to a new culture/identity?) 

 
Cross-Curricular connection to the SOGI Curriculum “Pronouns/Allies”Talk about pronouns: he, she, they, boy, girl, them etc.

1. Compare this book to the book to the book “I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel & Jazz Jennings”.
2. More SOGI inspired books- “It feels good to be yourself A book about Gender Identity by Theresa Thorn” and “Its okay to be different by Todd Parr” “My Princess Boy” and “Jacobs New Dress”
3. What does the word “Ally” mean (share definition), are the other crayons in the story being allies? How about the art supplies, when they came into the story what were they trying to do?
4. When the new friend “Berry” asked red to draw a blue ocean for the boat, how do you think this made red feel?
5. When we try to be someone we are not, what happens to us? How do we feel?
6. Is it ok to feel or be different? How do you think red felt when it couldn’t colour in red? How about when it could colour in blue?

 
Part 3 Closing Activity- If you could write a letter to Red, what would you say? How would you be an ally to a friend like Red? (Younger students might draw a picture).

Royal Heights Elementary School hosts Multicultural Day to celebrate the diversity within our school!

                                                 "Multicultural Community Event!"

Who: Families were invited to hear the diversity within our room. Over the week students prepared to share their understanding of their culture and identity. 

What: At our event we invited students to share a snack something that is universal to all. In groups or individually students shared a piece of their culture to the audience. Some chose to share a cultural dance, information about their culture or a cultural practice. We had an artifact table for students to share artifacts in relation to their culture. We even brought in a Henna Artist with signed parent permission (Mendhi By Ruby). 

Student Learning- Students were communicating learning in such a meaningful way and brought our community of parents together for this sharing. This made for a meaningful audience. 

Through this event we were able to connect to our core competencies. See below the core competencies we focussed on. These have been taken directly from BC's New Curriculum Website https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies

Connection to BC's New Curriculum Core Competencies- 
Positive personal & Cultural Identity-
"A positive personal and cultural identity is the awareness, understanding, and appreciation of all the facets that contribute to a healthy sense of oneself. It includes awareness and understanding of one’s family background, heritage(s), language(s), beliefs, and perspectives in a pluralistic society. Students who have a positive personal and cultural identity value their personal and cultural narratives, and understand how these shape their identity. Supported by a sense of self-worth, self-awareness, and positive identity, students become confident individuals who take satisfaction in who they are, and what they can do to contribute to their own well-being and to the well-being of their family, community, and society. " 
Communication Competency-
Communication competency encompasses the set of abilities that students use to impart and exchange information, experiences, and ideas, to explore the world around them, and to understand and effectively engage in the use of digital media. Communication competency provides a bridge between students’ learning, their personal and social identity and relationships, and the world in which they interact. 

Teacher Learning- The learning for me is when students get to share parts of their identity and culture it brings us even closer together. I saw a lot of smiles today. Thank you to all our families and community members for coming to our event today! :)

Below are some photos captured in Division 3's "Multicultural Community Event!"

Playful inquiry is for all learners. It allows students to be open, curious and playful. As educators when we set up engaging materials that are inviting, students are motivated to learn. As mentioned by Susan Harris Mackay, in "The Principals of Playful Inquiry", a curious mind is an alert mind, one that is primed for learning (Mackay, 2010).  Playful Inquiry is setting up inviting materials and believing that the power of play is an activator in learning. Students are collaborating, connecting and playing. Students need time to explore and play. Susan states "Classroom environments should encourage children to become lost in their play, and adults to let them (Mackay, 2010)." Children are naturally curious and capable. I have a multi-aged classroom (Grade 4, 5 & 6). Playful Inquiry allows me to differentiate for all learners in the room. As a teacher I have spent time collaborating with Jennifer Barker our districts numeracy helping teacher. We have spent time co-planning and teaching through playful inquiry. I have seen student engagement increase, collaboration about numerical concepts and understanding improve just through play. Students are connecting at many different levels and our classroom community bond continues to grow as we learn to explore and play together. 

How am I documenting the learning?  I am able to document the learning through taking anecdotal notes and listening. I can take videos and photos. All of these combined with student work samples, and exit slips provide formative assessment. Based on this information we are able to plan subsequent lessons that build on what the students know. Formative assessment can include the following: ticket out the door activities, conversations as students are working at a station, journalling and through student reflections on inquiry questions. You might think, do I just let students play. The answer is yes, at first we let students explore with diverse range of materials such as math manipulative's, books, pictures and diverse objects. Next, students have choice in which math station they want to go to. Once they reach a math station they have guiding questions at that station set up by the teacher on what they are working on. The learning for students is based on all our core competencies (communication, thinking and personal & social). Students are learning through doing, playing and reflecting. 

                                                  A few examples of what we have done through a Fraction Unit:

Materials used: Cuisenaire blocks, transparent fraction circles, erasers in different shapes (butterfly, frog and insects), cuisenaire block strips for white boards with magnets on the back, fraction themed books, The Lion's Share book, asking every student to bring a photo, square blocks, coloured shape blocks, ticket out the door sheets and variety of worksheets with guiding questions/diagrams and activities to support learning.

Examples of Activities Below: 

Talking Points- This helped us see where we are and where we need to go. Talking points allow students to communicate their understanding of numerical concepts. In our case we were working on Fraction talking points.

Exploration- Students had choice in visiting math stations. Every station contained an inquiry question. (cuisenaire blocks, transparent fraction circles, erasers in different shapes (butterfly, frog and insects),  fraction themed books etc.) 

Literacy Connection- We read the book "The Lion's Share" as a class. We used our Reading Power Strategy of inferring prior to reading to take predictions on what this book might be about. Next, story time!
Fraction Activity: We had 8 x 8 pink square pieces of paper that symbolized the cake in the story. I read the story a second time and students had to fold their square piece of paper as all the animals begin to take a 'piece' of the cake. 
Reflection Question: What did you notice happened to the equal pieces of cake? Can you connect this to fractions?

Playful Inquiry- We put cuisenaire blocks on tables for students to play with.  Students needed this time to build, create and explore. Some students had never used cuisenaire blocks before. This was a great opportunity for them to have no guided instructions and allow them to explore. 
​Follow up activity: Using Cuisenaire fraction block strips with magnets on the board, we asked students to consider the relationship between the rods when different colours were the "whole." Students were given time and space to explore the relationships that existed within the rods.
Inquiry Question: If the orange cuisenaire block represents a whole, and the red block was a 'part' how many red blocks would it take to complete the whole? What is the fraction name for this part? Now, If the brown cuisenaire block represents a whole and the red block was a part how many red blocks would it take to complete the whole? yellow? etc. Pick another two colours on your own to explore. 
Ticket out the door question: "Micheal says the red rod is always 1/4. Do you agree or disagree?" Explain your thinking"

Making connections to math and our personal world-  Take a look at the family photo/sports photo you have brought with you to school. What is the fraction of those wearing hats? A fraction for those who have Brown eyes in your photo? (You can be very creative with photos). Students can see many different relationships with fractions in mind. They see fractions as representations of a set or a group. 

All in all, I have seen students motivated and excited about playful inquiry in numeracy. All students at various levels are able to participate. If Playful Inquiry can work in a multi-aged setting (grade 4, 5 and 6) it can work for you! The reason it works is because their is an entry point for all learners. Learning can be differentiated and each student can work to their potential.  I am very excited to continue to explore and document student learning through a playful inquiry platform of learning. 

A BIG thank you to Jennifer Barker for allowing me to vision my numeracy lessons with excitement, engagement, motivation and growth as we continue to explore through a playful inquiry approach. Jenn's blog contains many rich resources for all teachers to use as they dive into playful inquiry. You can visit her blog by going to:  http://www.meaningfulmathmoments.com/ 
Article Referenced: The Principles of Playful Inquiry By Susan Harris Mackay 2010:
 file:///Users/guestaccess/Downloads/The%20Principles%20of%20Playful%20Inquiry%20updated%202018.pdf

​Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them too quickly we keep them from reinventing it themselves.  - Piaget

What is the Moose Hide Campaign? The Moose Hide Campaign is a movement to put an end to violence against women and children. 

You may have heard of the Moose Hide Campaign but not sure how to introduce to your classroom community? Below I will indicate how I created a lesson on the Moose Hide Campaign and how you can adapt for classroom use.

Set up your classroom: We formed a large circle with our chairs in the centre of the classroom. 

​1) Visit The Moose Hide Campaign Webpage-  https://moosehidecampaign.ca/ to gain more knowledge yourself prior to your lesson and instructions on how to order Moose Hide for your classroom. (You can also check in with your Aboriginal Child Care worker, who may connect you to a class set of Moose Hide). 

2) Build an essential question. The one I used was:  "How would you feel if your mother, aunt or sister was taken away from you?  (Classroom discussion)  Our classroom discussion led into rich discussions. (Depending on your classroom community this could be a sensitive topic for students who may have lost a loved one). -- Something neat happened in our classroom students were making connections to Residential School. ​

3) Using the projector show students the homepage of the "Moose Hide Campaign Project" to tell students what this project is about. Read over a few highlights together. A big highlight in our class was going over "Why Use Moose Hide"  https://moosehidecampaign.ca/index.php/events/why-use-moosehide 

Investigate---Another option is asking students to type in the website on an Ipad and record 2-4 new things they learned by visiting the website themselves before bringing it to a classroom wide discussion. 
 
4) Think, pair, share --Why do you think this campaign is important? What is the purpose/message? 

5) We engaged in a video "The Moose Hide Campaign" 5:49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O8a5JOd8Bs off YouTube.

6) Every single student in my classroom received a Moose Hide with pride. Wearing the Moose Hide you are committing to honour, respect and protect the women and children in your life against violence. 
​
This lesson led us into talking more about "Grassroots" projects. We brainstormed how we could commit to spread the message!  

A few Quick Facts ..

• According to Statistics Canada, on average, a woman in Canada is killed in a domestic homicide every five days, and on any given day, over 6,000 women and children are living in emergency shelters to escape abuse. ‡
• Recognizing that Aboriginal women are three times more likely to experience violence and be assaulted by their partner than non-Aboriginal women, B.C. is investing $2 million to help Aboriginal communities and organizations develop and deliver local programs as part of the three year Provincial Domestic Violence Plan. ‡
• In February 2016, the Province co-hosted the B.C. Family Gathering event for over 350 family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The Province shared their feedback with the federal government and participants of the National Roundtable on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. ‡
• B.C. invests $70 million each year on prevention and intervention services and programs to protect vulnerable women and victims of crime. ‡ Over the last two years an additional $7 million in civil forfeiture grants has been targeted to action on violence against women. ‡
• B.C. now has 58 projects that focus on supporting Aboriginal communities in anti- violence and prevention initiatives supported by civil forfeiture grant funding. ‡
• B.C. is improving transportation and cell service coverage to increase public safety on highways in the north.
  • B.C. has committed $5 million to the Highway 16 Transportation Action Plan which will improve access to transportation services along the Highway 16 corridor and enable residents of First Nations communities and municipalities to travel safely to and from rural towns and villages along Highway 16.
  • Under B.C. s 10 year Connecting British Columbia ͟Agreement with Telus, more than 1,600 km of new cellular highway coverage has been completed, which includes more than 500 km of expanded cell phone service along Highway 16.

(These Facts are on the Moose Hide Campaign Website)

Thank you Lise (Royal Heights Aboriginal Child Care Worker) for showing me the Moose Hide Campaign. 

Photos from our classroom lesson on the Moose Hide Project- September 22nd 

Photos from our outdoor classroom experience August 29th and 30th 

SNOW DAY!
 
You hate, love or adore the snow. I might be the outlier here but, I am starting to really love the snow! Snow brings communities together. I have never seen so many acts of random kindness on my street and kids playing outside.
 
A few random acts of kindness I have witnessed have really brought a smile to my face. The acts of kindness I have witnessed: digging cars out of the snow, pushing cars onto the main road and shovelling your neighbour’s sidewalk or driveway. The kindness continues with so many individuals who have been in a situation where they have been stuck, everyone is willing to lend a hand.
 
In addition, the kids love the snow days. I live near many neighbouring schools in Surrey, BC. We finally had our first snow day in 15 years according to a Global News statement. I love that I am seeing so many children in my neighbourhood who are playing outside! It is lovely to see and brings back memories of my childhood growing up on Vancouver Island. Snow is the perfect excuse for families to go play outside together. Snow angels, sledding, snowball fights, snowmen and igloos.

Therefore, I must say I love the snow. Despite, the slush, ice and mucky road conditions it creates- it's nice to see so much kindness and play time out there! I hope you try to enjoy the snow as much as possible while it is here, whether that be in a cozy blanket watching the snow blanket the streets or outside building your snow fort. 

Questions to think about...
What act of random kindness have you seen today? 
How do you bring the topic of kindness into your classroom community?
How can we encourage more "play" into our communities? 

Picture to left a child in India learning how to write on her brand new chalk board. She was super excited!