1. RULER Family Session Feeling Words Curriculum
Lamar Elementary

2. Purpose of RULER
help children find and use strategies that work for them to manage their full range of emotions

3. Emotional Regulation
The ability to respond to strong feelings by applying strategies to move from an unhelpful emotion to a more helpful emotion. To use emotion wisely to achieve a goal in ways that don’t harm self or others.

4. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The attitudes, knowledge, and skills associated with:
Nikki
TIME: 3 minutes.
ACTIVITY: Review RULER Skills.
PURPOSE: Remind participants of 5 key emotional intelligence skills that are developed by the Anchors and Feeling Words Curriculum.
SAY:
Quiz participants on the RULER skills.
Say, “To review, the five RULER skills of emotional intelligence are: recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions. Emotional intelligence is about what we do with our emotions. It provides a framework for harnessing the power of emotions. It also encompasses the importance of using these skills (not just having them) in daily life.”
“Recall the questions you use to develop these skills when you integrate Mood Meter activities throughout your day and week. For example, to help students develop skills in recognizing and labeling emotions, you ask them the question What are you feeling? What word can you use to describe that feeling?”
(optional) Show Mood Meter Lessons video that demonstrates how the RULER skills map onto the Mood Meter.
WORKBOOK PAGE 14

5. MOOD METER CHECK-IN ENERGY PLEASANTNESS Your Experience
R: Where are you on the Mood Meter? U: Why are you feeling this way?
L: What word best describes your
feeling?
Your Strategy
E: How are you expressing this feeling?
Are you comfortable expressing?
R: How do you want to feel? What
strategy will you use to stay or shift?
NIKKI
5 mins
TIME: 30 minutes (reflection plus introduction--20 seconds X 72 people [60 participants + 8 table facilitators + 4 trainers)
ACTIVITY: Opening quote and personal introductions
PURPOSE: Emotions matter.
SAY:
“Who would be willing to read this aloud? (Have 2-3 volunteers read the quote). What does it mean to you? (Have 2-3 volunteers share.)
Emotions affect our lives in countless ways. Over the next few days we’re going to spend some time gaining knowledge and building skills related to our emotions.
I’d like each of you to take two minutes to reflect on why you decided to come to this training. What are your personal and professional goals? What do you hope to gain over the next few days? Why are you really here? Please jot down your response and then we will ask you to introduce yourself to the group. When you introduce yourself, please share what school or district you are coming from, your current position in the school or district, why you’re here, and one interesting fact about yourself that’s unrelated to this training or your position in the school. Please try to keep your introduction under 20 seconds.
I’ll start. (Start with your own introduction including your response to the prompt.)

6. Feeling Words Curriculum (FW)
pre-k - grade 6
each grade is assigned feeling words
focus on 1 word every couple of weeks
includes concrete lessons for teachers

7. Feeling Words Curriculum
The Feeling Words integrate emotion vocabulary into existing academic curricula:
STEP 1: Personal Association
STEP 2: Academic Link
STEP 3: School-Home Partnership
STEP 4: Creative Connection
STEP 5: Strategy-Building Session
Sharon
Year 2 – The FWC (K-8) & RULER H.S.
TIME: 6 minutes.
SAY & DO:
1. After students and educators master the four Anchor Tools in Year 1, the Feeling Words Curriculum is introduced in Year 2. This is when students develop more advanced emotional intelligence skills. Across the year, teachers are taught how to integrate 15 emotion concepts into their core curriculum (about 1 Feeling Word every two weeks). Feeling Words are introduced and mastered through a series of 5 steps that vary across grades (k to 2, 3-5, 6-8). The FWC and its steps are designed to enhance vocabulary, critical thinking, mental health, effective communication, and self-regulation
2. Describe each step briefly with an example.
a. Step 1: Learning emotion-related vocabulary words by sharing personal experiences related to the meaning of the word
b. Step 2: Relating Feeling Words to social and academic issues
c. Step 3: Discussing Feeling Words with family members at home
d. Step 4: Applying Feeling Word concepts to visual and performing arts activities
e. Step 5: Learning strategies to effectively regulate feelings
3. Briefly describe the high school program. (Read slide)
4. Optional: Show video. This is a good time to show the Garreth Video.
WORKBOOK PAGE 23

8. Kinder Feelings Words
cheerful excited down worried angry relaxed afraid curious proud respect embarrassed bored caring unkind brave stubborn lonely quiet belong

9. role play
Brian: child Pat: adult

10. guidelines for sharing stories
choose a story that is real & meaningful to you
make sure your child can relate to the story
use more than just words
share descriptive details
keep it short (no more than 2 minutes)

11. Think about a time in your life when you felt tremendous joy and pride in life – big or small. Silently write about that moment for 5 minutes.

12. PAIR SHARE
Find partner you don’t know well. Partner A shares (2 minutes) Partner A reflects: one strength of story and/or telling of it one thing to improve Partner B reflects switch roles.

13. Over the next 5 minutes, silently write your own story of a time when you felt courageous. Choose a story relevant to your child.

14. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Where was Alexander on the mood meter? How does your body feel when you have the same emotion? What caused Alexander to feel that way? How did he express his feelings? How effective was he in managing his emotions? What else could he have done when feeling that feeling?

15. Strategies What are you feeling right now?
Do you want to keep feeling this way?
What can you do to help yourself?
What can we think about to feel more, less or the same amount of an emotion?
What can we do to feel more, less or the same amount of an emotion?

16. looking ahead