Chapter 4: Social and emotional learning

Social Adjustment Social and Emotional Learning: Is and always has been crucial and the primary domain of early childhood education. As teachers, we need to help children develop skills that will enable them to face a world with challenging situations and extreme pressures. Young children are exposed to influences from media and technology where they face contradicting expectations for personal and interpersonal behavior. Raising public awareness that appropriate early intervention on a good path toward better social adjustment throughout their school years and into adulthood Social Adjustment

Young Children’s Development in Social & Emotional Learning: Social- emotional competence: The ability to understand, manage, and express the social and emotional aspects of one's life in ways that enable successful management of life's tasks like learning, forming relationships, solving everyday problems, and adapting to the complex demands of growth and development.

Cont.. Socially competence children engage in satisfying interactions and activities with peers and adults and through these interaction improve their own competence Social development affects all the areas of learning and development and so it is an important part of early childhood curriculum.

Social Emotional Competence: Social skills: the range of appropriate strategies for interacting with others. Social depositions: enduring character traits. Made up of 4 components: Emotional self-regulation: responding to experiences with an appropriate range of immediate or delayed emotions Social knowledge & understanding: knowledge of social norms and customs. This is called socialization- becoming a member of the community.

Teaching and Learning in Social and Emotional Development: In the early preschool and early school years children don’t learn social competence through direct instruction. Instead they learn through their interactions and behaviors because such guidance is individualized. Modeling: children learn positive behavior when they see modeling in this case the teacher being empathetic, solving problems, taking risks.. Coaching: entails teachers dividing a positive behavior into its component parts; creating explicit instruction, creating opportunities for them, and offering feedback on their behaviors. Providing opportunities for practice: repetition and practice are vital to mastering appropriate social behavior.

Fitting the Learning Experience to the Learning Objective: (Dorothy) Social and emotional learning can help early childhood teaching. Teachers should think about which component to emphasis in promoting learning in each area. Teachers play a critical role in creating a warm and caring program. This will assist children with early attachments in transitioning to a school setting and environment that will be successful. Adults need to understand the difficult challenges young children fear of meeting strangers. Creating a positive environment guides the children to acquire social and emotional skills and knowledge.

Teaching Strategies: Child Guided Experience Emotional Learning Supports children through their separation from family. Let children know they are valued by giving them your utmost respect and attention. Address diversity and differences positively while including materials and experience that reflects the different cultures. Encourage family members to be involved in the school program Self-identity: how one defines and feels about oneself as a person. Feeling Empathy Empathy: comprehending another person's feelings, being able to put yourself in that person’s shoes. Showing caring, compassion, and displaying concern for children if they angry and upset. Allow children the chance to express their feelings. Pair children together with different abilities so they can help each other.

Adult- guided experience : (Leidy) Our responsibility as teachers is to help the children develop a positive and realistic sense of confidence. Here are some strategies that are best practice for early childhood: 1. Create a classroom space and schedule, this will help with the daily routine 2. Encourage self-help skills, give them time to do things on their own. Such as cleaning up. 3. Introduce the next level of challenge, for example: at clean up time teach them how to sort blocks by size. 4. Support children ideas and initiatives, welcome ideas and decision to encourage them to make choices 5. Acknowledge and encourage children’s efforts and accomplishment and provide opportunities for children to be leaders. 6. Provide opportunities for children to be leaders 7. Tune in the involvement level of the children during large group activities.

Recognizing and labeling emotions: helping children master emotional experiences and vocabulary Emotional awareness: understanding that one has feelings as distinct from thoughts, being able to identify and name those feelings, and recognize others have feelings and thoughts different from one’s own. Attend to children's emotional state. 2. Accept children's full range of emotions as normal. 3. Label children’s emotions and your own with simple words. For example angry, happy, or sad. 4.Point out to children that other children have feelings too 5. Comment conversationally on the emotions you observe children expressing throughout the day 6. Plan small group activities that focus on feelings. 7. Discuss with families the children's need to express and label their feelings.

Teaching children emotional awareness as parents and teachers: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=teachers+helping+students+learn+em otional+inte https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlWY51JbPiU

Social Learning: Child guided experience (Cecilia) Of the key knowledge and skills in the area of social learning, developing a sense of community, building relationships, and engaging in cooperative play all seem so typically develop in the course of child-guided interactions. Developing a sense of community: A community is a social group with common interests. Community members receive and give one another support for individual and group undertaking. Teaching strategies: 1. Create an atmosphere in which children and adults are expected to be kind to and supportive of one another 2. Arrange the room to include both open areas where large groups can assemble and closed areas with comfortable furniture conducive to more interactions. 3. Call attention to occasion when children are working or sharing an experience together as a group. Take photos of the group activities and put them in the class album.

Building Relationships: Human relationships are rewarding in their own right and facilitate every other type of learning. Relationships with peers are evident by age 2 and become more reciprocal during preschool. Preschoolers become more selective in the kinds of interactions they want with adults, whether it is seeking comfort, getting help, sharing a discovery, or simply enjoying a conversation Teaching Strategies: 1. Be genuine and authentic in your interactions with children. Talk to them to learn how what and how they think, not to manage their behavior. 2. Maintain a stable group of children and adults so relationships can build over time 3. Support children’s friendships. Be aware of when preschoolers are forming relationships with one another. 4. Provide opportunities for children to interact with less familiar peoples.

Engaging in cooperative paly: Cooperation is acting together toward a common goal. Cooperative play and collaboration in the early childhood classroom means playing and working with others. Young children learn to play with others by watching and imitating, and by trial and error. Teaching Strategies: 1. Promote interaction through your use of space and materials in the classroom 2. Create opportunities for collaborative interaction. Allow sufficient time for children to elaborate on their play on their play ideas and incorporate peers into their role playing. 3. Help children who tend to be aggressive or withdrawn to join their peers 4. Allow children to discover the consequences of their actions-provided no one is being hurt or endanger

Engaging in conflict resolution: Adult guided experience (Camille) Conflict resolution: is problem solving and guidance using appropriate, non-aggressive strategies to discuss and develop solution to interpersonal differences. Teaching strategies to help children resolve their conflicts: Establish a safe classroom Convey calmness through your voice, body language, and facial expressions during a conflict Soothe children who are upset Develop solutions with children together by soliciting their ideas and deciding which ones to try. Help children reflect on the problem solving strategies they are learning at times other than during actual conflicts

Developing a framework for moral behavior: Morality is a system for evaluating human conduct. Teachers can support children as they begin to construct a moral framework by: Be consistent and fair- minded Verbalize in simple terms the reasons for your actions and decisions that involve moral matters, such as fairness Work with children's families to achieve as much congruence between home and school values as possible Social and emotional learning is an essential developmental domain for young children

Activities for Social and Emotional Learning: Dramatic Play is good for social and emotional activity  is the a strong  foundation of a child over health and well been .        Dramatic Play  they use verbal and nonverbal communication as they play . Vocabulary and language  skills are strengthen  as  they learn to appreciate each other's feelings as they share space and work together to create play a scenario  . They can play and try different roles.

Scavenger Hunt Materials: index card   Provide each student with an index card. Ask each student to write his/her physical characteristics on one card (blue eyes, brown hair, etc.). Put all cards in one box and mix them up. Distribute one card to each student making sure no one gets his/her own card. Give students 5 minutes to search for the person who fits the description they hold. Tell students there is no talking during this activity but they can walk around the room. Then have students shared their results. How many students guessed correctly!!!!! This activity help them with emotional awareness as they become to understand the different faces, looks of people and teaches them respect towards others.