Halloween is just around the corner, this Saturday! If applicable, please use the following activities and
resources to integrate Social and Emotional Learning within the classroom. Each of these activities are directed towards Halloween, and offer activities to lead discussions towards problem solving, mindfulness, recognizing emotions, decision making, and discerning the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.

For elementary school students:

Trick or Treat Behavior Sort Activity: Decision-Making & Self-Management

• Have students group behaviors under “trick” or “treat.” “Trick” behaviors are inappropriate; “treat” behaviors are appropriate.
• Examples of behaviors include: stealing, saying “please”, yelling, holding the door for someone, running in the hall, saying “thank you”, sharing, hitting, working quietly, teasing, following directing, interrupting, raising your hand, taking turns, name calling, giving a compliment, listening, etc.
• Print a list of behaviors and cut them into strips of paper. Students will then be able to take turns placing behaviors under the correct column.

Spider Emotions Matching Game: Identifying Emotions

• This game requires kids to predict what a certain circumstance or action would cause a spider to feel, so it is best to use it to reinforce the concepts with children who already have an emotional vocabulary.
• You can download the template for the Spider Emotions matching game cards, but it requires a free subscription to the weekly newsletter.

Spider Emotions Matching Game

Halloween Trick or Treat Safety Coloring Book: Mindfulness

• The link below will allow you to download some Halloween Safety coloring pages. Print them off and let your child be mindful when coloring in the picture. These coloring pages are not COVID-friendly, so please be mindful when using them.

Halloween Safety Book

​For Middle-High School Students:
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We're sure lots of people are excited for Halloween and all the activities Halloween has to offer, even during the pandemic. Halloween presents opportunities to teach students about a few social and emotional learning skills – such as self-awareness. With the following tips, tricks, and activities there are options to create a SPOOKY social and emotional learning environment. 

Pumpkin Feelings –  Teaching Self-Awareness

• Halloween offers opportunities to illustrate how students may explore, identify, and develop understanding of emotions. 
• With a laminated print-out of a pumpkin, the teacher or student will be able to draw facial expressions to demonstrate different emotions. 
• Students will be able to identify the emotions and come up with words to describe the facial expression or emotion of the pumpkin.
• Students should draw their own facial expression on the pumpkin; share with the class the emotion they chose and why. Additionally, students could develop Halloween-related stories about why the pumpkin is “feeling” that way. 
• Lastly, any students with a sad, angry, or scared pumpkin should be encouraged to participate by responding to make the pumpkin feel better. 

Halloween Character – Teaching Self-Awareness

• Students get the opportunity to draw, write about, or act out a Halloween character feeling various emotions. Examples could include Jack Skellington, Coraline, Casper, or ET.

Ghost Story – Teaching Relationship Skills

• Sit students in a circle, and read them an opening line or two from a Halloween themed story.
• Have each student, one by one, create the next line to the story and share out loud with the class. 

Trick or Treating Social Story – Teaching Social Awareness

• The link below is a free printable but it requires a subscription to a newsletter, although the subscription is free.
• It speaks on topics that include costumes, weather, social etiquette, safety, and all things scary.

Trick or Treating Social Story

With more and more people becoming connected through technology and social media every day it's important to remember that while technology can be extremely beneficial to us, it can be harmful for our mental well-being.
​You've more than likely heard time and time again to "put down the phone" and "unplug" and "detox from social media". Maybe it hasn't stuck yet, or maybe you're stuck in a cycle of unplugging and plugging back in. That's alright! Let's just go through some of the benefits of unplugging from news, social media, and technology and we'll give you some easy ways to view less of those things.

What are the benefits?

• You'll interact with others more.
  

​Leave your cellphone at home next time you go out, or at home with your partner or roommate. Try to be engaged with others as much as possible in person. During a pandemic, and in more virtual spaces it's harder to be in person, however, Zoom hang-outs and talking over the phone is great for connection.
 

• You might not feel the need to compare yourself as much (FOMO).

Social media is a great way to share parts of your life that you're proud of or that you think others would find interesting. Most of the time we only share those good parts of our lives, not the reality of the life we live or the more negative things that go on. We can only see so much into people's lives through social media so it's good to unplug to remind ourselves that we can continue to live and exist in this world without comparing ourselves to others. 

• You get more time to check-in with yourself.

Put your phone on the charger in another room and check in with yourself for a little while. How are you feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally? Try a mindfulness practice (or use the Calm app on your phone to de-stress). Light a candle and sit with your thoughts. Go for a walk and notice the sounds, sights, and smells of your neighborhood.

• Stress Recovery

It's no surprise that constantly seeing negative news, social media drama, and using technology can make us stressed. It's time to listen to those studies telling you that social media and technology can be harmful to your mental health. De-stress without using your phone by listening to music, playing music, taking a bath, taking a nap, starting a project, creating art, or going on a hike. 
You don't have to unplug forever from social media or technology! Try deleting an app from your phone or curating your social media newsfeed to more positive posts. 

Here are some more ways to take a break and unplug:

• Commit to zero technology for the first hour you’re awake. Focus on meditation and your upcoming day
• Choose a power down hour during your day. Maybe it is in the morning as suggested above, or maybe you want the break at lunch or before bed
• Schedule time to take extended breaks. Choose days throughout the year where you only use your phone for texting and calling
• Take a moment to visit your favorite destination and leave your phone behind. Go outside and enjoy nature without sharing it.
• Replace the habit with something else. Try reading a book before bed instead of scrolling through social media. 
• If you do want to view social media every day, curate your feeds. Follow people who are good for your mental health.

)The goal of National Bullying Prevention Month is to encourage schools, communities, and organizations to work together to stop bullying and cyberbullying and put an end to hatred and racism by increasing awareness of the prevalence and stop impact of all forms of bullying on all children of all ages. It was created in October 2006 by organizations such as PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center, National Education Association, National PTA, American Federation for Teachers, and the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education, to raise awareness of the issue of bullying. 

Firstly, let's define bullying. Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. Bullying can also take place through technology, known as cyberbullying. Examples of cyberbullying include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles. There are many other types of aggressive behavior that may not fit the definition of bullying, but that does not mean that they are any less serious or require less attention than bullying. Rather, those behavior require different prevention and response strategies. (From the Youth.gov definition)

Here are some things teachers and school leaders can do to create a safe and supportive environment that helps to prevent bullying:

• Establish a culture of inclusion and respect that welcomes all students. Reward students when they show thoughtfulness and respect for peers, adults, and the school.
• Train school staff to prevent bullying. All staff can help keep an eye out for bullying.
• Set a tone of respect in the classroom:
  • Create ground rules: develop group norms with students, use positive terms for what to do instead of what not to do, and support school-wide rules
  • Reinforce the rules: be a role model, show students respect, make expectations clear, reward good behavior, use one-on-one feedback and do not publicly reprimand, help students correct their behaviors.
• Hold classroom meetings to provide a forum for students to talk about school-related issues beyond academics. These meetings can help teachers stay informed about what is going on at school and help students feel safe and supported: 
  • Establish ground rules. Kids should feel free to discuss issues without fear. Classroom meetings are not a time to discuss individual conflicts or gossip.
  • Start the conversation. Focus on specific topics like bullying. Meetings can identify and address problems affecting the group as a whole. Use open ended questions or prompts such as:
    • Share an example of a student who helped someone at school this week.
    • Without names share an example of a time when someone made another student feel bad. What did students nearby do? What did you do? Did you want to do something different? How can adults help?
  • Follow-up when necessary. Monitor student body language and reactions. If a topic seems to be affecting a student, follow-up with him or her.

(From StopBullying.Gov)

Avoid these mistakes when supporting students who are bullied:

• Never tell the child to ignore the bullying
• Do not blame the child for being bullied. Even if they provoked the bullying, no one deserves to be bullied.
• Do not tell the child to physically fight back against the kid who is bullying. It could get that child hurt, suspended, or expelled.
• Parents should resist the urge to contact the other parents involved. It may make matters worse. School or other officials can act as mediators between parents.

Here are some ways to address bullying behavior:

• Work with the child to understand some of the reasons he or she bullied, for example:
  • Sometimes children bully to fit in. These kids can benefit from participating in positive activities. Involvement in sports and clubs can enable them to take leadership roles and make friends without feeling the need to bully.
  • Other times kids act out because something else (issues at home, stress, abuse) is going on in their lives. They also may have been bullied. These kids may be in need of additional support, such as mental health services.
• Involve the kid who bullied in making amends or repairing the situation. The goal is to help them see how their actions affect others.

(From StopBullying.Gov)