SEL Essentials at Mid-Year: How Do We Reconnect, Rebuild, and Begin Again?

January is an opportunity for a fresh start in our classrooms, particularly when attending to social-emotional learning (SEL) for our students.

How Do We Begin Again?

No matter how the first half of your year went, we are all asking ourselves some version of the following questions: How do we begin again? How do we reconnect with our students? How do we revitalize our classroom community for the second half of the year?

Acknowledge and Reflect on the School Year So Far

For us, the first step in preparing for a new calendar year is to reflect on where we are and where we’ve been. If we sit for a moment, we might discover some concrete successes and insights that will illuminate our path forward.

If we sit for a moment, we might discover some concrete successes and insights that will illuminate our path forward. 

For us, the first step in preparing for a new calendar year is to reflect on where we are and where we’ve been. If we sit for a moment in the joy and pain, we might discover some concrete successes and insights from the past seven months that will illuminate our path forward.

So, as we move from cold winter months toward the promise of spring, we invite you to ask yourself:

Revisiting the SEL Essentials

Reflecting on these questions allows us to hold tight to what worked and let go of what did not. As you reflect and prepare for the second half of the year, you will inevitably have to make some hard decisions about what to prioritize.

In our SEL Essentials blog series, which debuted last fall, we explored several key topics, including beginning the school year, dealing with trauma, developing pro-social skills, and reimagining our discipline practices.

Today, we propose revisiting our very first blog of the series, “SEL Essentials: What Do We Prioritize? Three SEL Essentials for Beginning the Year,” in which we outlined the following three essentials:

In January, at this mid-year point of inflection, these essentials still ring true. As students return there is no way we can expect them to undertake the hard work of learning (or expect ourselves to do the hard work of teaching) without the solid foundation that these SEL essentials provide.

As students return there is no way we can expect them to undertake the hard work of learning (or expect ourselves to do the hard work of teaching) without the solid foundation that these SEL essentials provide.

With that in mind, we invite you to reflect: What suggestions and ideas from that first blog post might you revisit or try as you welcome students back this month?

For example, you might recommit to morning circles, providing a predictable, caring space for your students to connect with each other and refine their social and emotional skills.

Or you might make time every day for your students to reflect together on their partner work, thinking about what went well and how they coped when the partnership was challenging.

Do A Mid-Year “Tune-Up” with the Reconnecting and Rebuilding Toolkit

Our complimentary Reconnecting and Rebuilding Toolkit is available to help educators build connections and create community. As you start school this January, it may be helpful to reacquaint yourself with the toolkit as a way to continue building your caring classroom learning community.

Whether the toolkit is brand new to you or you are returning to it, you will find helpful support for connecting with students and building relationships.

What’s In the Reconnecting and Rebuilding Toolkit

The toolkit is free to download and is designed for use by any K–6 educator. You don’t need to be currently implementing any Collaborative Classroom programs in order to use it.

The toolkit includes an Introduction, which contains helpful implementation tips and suggestions for modifications, plus a set of developmentally appropriate Community Chats or Class Meetings. The kit spans two grade level ranges, K–1 and 2–6, with specific content for each.

At K–1, the Rebuilding and Reconnecting Toolkit includes the following Community Chats:

At Grades 2–6, the toolkit contains the following Class Meetings:

Welcoming Your Students Back

As you review the list of K–1 and 2–6 topics, we hope you find a variety of meetings that will support your ongoing efforts to build relationships with and among students.

If you have used the kit in the past, we invite you to take a fresh look at those weeks to pull out what you might want to reintroduce this January.

Taking the time now to make all students feel welcome will help lessen the typical anxieties and worries that may manifest after an extended break from school.

Addressing Specific Topics to Support Your Students

Students may be struggling with personal emotional burdens that impact their relationships and behavior in the classroom. As you encounter these inevitable challenges, the meetings “Problem Solving” and “Managing Difficult Emotions” might be helpful.

In addition, please consider sharing the toolkit with your school counselors, social workers, or school psychologists as a resource that might further support their efforts with struggling students.

Finally, if your school community has experienced serious loss and/or tragedy, you will most likely need lots of help and support. The “Handling Loss” and “Responding to Tragedy” meetings are designed to provide helpful support as you begin the work of healing.

A New Year’s Resolution: Be Patient, Give Grace

Because I usually abandon most of the resolutions I make at New Year’s, I have tried not to make many of them. But this year, I have pledged to make a few hold true. As I thought about them in the context of beginning school in January, I think they might be helpful for us all to consider as we move forward together.

I suggest we strive to be patient and give grace to ourselves, our colleagues, our students, and their families.

We will all make mistakes, and there will be days when we are not our best selves—but with patience, grace, and lots of kindness, we and our students can thrive.

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Download the complete, complimentary Reconnecting and Rebuilding Toolkit for grades K–6.

In case you missed it, read the Introduction to this series, “SEL Essentials: Reimagining Our Social and Emotional Learning Priorities,” and catch up on earlier installments of the series.