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Teachers are an integral part of supporting a child’s academic, social, and emotional growth. Social-emotional learning (SEL) activities for elementary students give them the tools to understand their feelings and make thoughtful choices. These activities also strengthen classroom connections through community building. It only takes a few minutes a day to create a classroom that is emotionally strong and ready to learn.

Spark connection with SEL activities for kids

Simple SEL activities for elementary school help students check in with their feelings and boost emotional awareness. Get everyone ready to learn during your morning circle time to start the day off on a great note. 

• Unleash Your Superpower: Students pick a morning superpower, like a bravery boost or kindness shield, and discuss how they’ll use it to practice self-management.
• Flip Your Feelings: In a circle, students share a challenging emotion they’re experiencing and pair it with a strategy to regulate it, such as asking for help or stretching.
• Settle into Stillness: Lead a quick mindfulness warm-up where students sit quietly and notice three different sounds in the room.
• Forecast Your Feelings: Have students describe their current emotions using weather terms, helping them build self-awareness around feelings.
• Launch a Kindness Quest: Challenge students with a mini-mission, like befriending someone new or helping a classmate, to develop responsible decision-making and empathy.

Confidence Activity: Confidence SEL Discussion Prompts for Counseling
By Counselor Keri
Grades: 4th-6th

Help your upper elementary students examine what confidence looks and feels like through flash cards. Use the confidence card prompts to spark discussions about self-esteem, reflect on past experiences, and enhance feelings of connection. 

Express emotion with art and drama

Elementary students are just starting to explore self-awareness and self-management. Younger kids are also beginning to learn relationship skills. These simple art and drama prompts are easy to adapt for any grade-level morning circles, small group counseling, or to incorporate in calm-down corner ideas.

• Create Emotion Cards: Students draw their current feelings on cards, then share with a partner to discuss healthy ways to manage those emotions.
• Music Mood Match: Students pick a song that reflects their current mood and write it down, helping them connect with and express their feelings.
• Build Kindness: Using dramatic play and body movements, students explore what acts of kindness look like and feel like in action.
• Mirror Me with Emotional Portraits: Students draw themselves as they feel now, then create a second portrait showing how they want to feel, using color and expression to reflect emotion.
• Make Mood Swirls: Students use swirling, curling, or sharp strokes to express their current emotions in a landscape or abstract work.
• Model the Masters: Display works by moody masters like Van Gogh or Picasso, and have students emulate the style to represent their own mood.

Dramatic Play Bakery for Social Emotional Learning – Kindergarten Center
By Namasteinschool1
Grades: PreK-2nd

Make a center by turning your calming corner into a dramatic play center with simple self-regulation prompts. This 92-page PDF resource includes editable templates, setup suggestions, role name tags, open and close signs, and play money, to name a few. 

Pause for mindfulness moments

Mindfulness helps strengthen elementary students’ focus and boosts their emotional awareness. It also lays the foundation for healthy mental habits that grow with them into SEL activities for high school. 

• Time Travel Breathing: Students explore different types of breathing for each “era,” like when dinosaurs roamed the Earth or the Space Race era, using it as a fun mindfulness moment to focus and calm themselves.
• Glow Worm Moments: Students close their eyes and imagine their bodies as glow worms, watching their light slowly dim and brighten while using their breath to follow the movement.
• Pop the Bubble with Your Breath: Students imagine holding bubble wrap in their hands — squeezing and inhaling deeply to “pop” a bubble, then exhaling slowly to release it, helping them practice controlled breathing and focus.

Affirmation Station – Mirror Printouts – Neutrals by Learning with Ms Lane
By Learning with Mrs. Lane
Grades: K-6th

This resource helps you to set up an affirmation station. It provides you with printable affirmations to put around your mirror to help students see their worth and replace negative thinking with positive. It includes a label, affirmations, “I am” templates, and blank templates. 

Build community with SEL kindness projects

Every classroom grows stronger when kindness is woven into daily routines. These SEL kindness team-building activities for kids help students turn empathy into action while creating a supportive, connected community. They can easily be built into transitions and small group projects or be used as part of gratitude activities for kids. 

• Build a Constellation of Compliments: Create a constellation bulletin board where students add a star each time they receive a compliment or compliment someone else, visually celebrating kindness in the classroom.
• Deliver Kindness Cards: Students make greeting cards for classmates or staff and deliver them weekly, spreading positivity and strengthening relationships.
• Assemble a Kindness Puzzle: When students face challenges, they write their name and a kind word on a blank puzzle piece and add it to a class puzzle. Over time, the class builds a collaborative “kindness puzzle” that represents their supportive community.

Random Acts Of Kindness Challenge Cards – Freebie by Counselor Chelsey
By Counselor Chelsey
Grades: K-5th

Challenge your students to do random acts of kindness daily through kindness cards. These 15 cards provide students with simple challenges that are easy to fit in during recess or lunch. 

Collaborate on solutions with real-world problem-solving tasks

Use real-world problem-solving activities during SEL time, a morning meeting, or anytime your class needs a quick collaboration boost that gets everyone thinking and connecting.

• Design a Kindness Map: Task students with mapping out areas within the school where someone might need help or a kind gesture. 
• Resolve a School Recess Conflict: Give students a common recess scenario and have them work through ways that they might solve the problem and build communication skills. 
• Invent a Kindness Machine: Group students to brainstorm how to build a machine that could provide everyone in the class with kindness. Have them draw their prototype. 

Problem Solving Puzzles (Social Skills Resource!)
By Elementary School Counselor – Rachel
Grades: 2nd-5th

You’ll find directions, 12 problems with three possible solutions, puzzle pieces, a blank puzzle template, and exploring-consequences sheets in this resource. Students can also collaborate using the discussion questions while reviewing the positive and negative consequences poster.

Reflect with SEL activities for elementary students

Reflection fits naturally into both ELA writing time and short classroom check-ins. Use simple SEL activities for elementary students to help them pause and express their feelings in meaningful ways.

• Journal Your Journey: Use prompts to help students reflect on their feelings for the day or week, encouraging them to consider what they learn from their emotions.
• Compose a Mood Poem: Students select an emotion they’ve experienced during the week and write a poem that expresses how it felt.
• Turn into a Character: Students imagine themselves as a storybook character and reflect on how their feelings have shaped their school story.
• Create a Feeling Flipbook: Students list a few simple emotions and note what makes them feel that way. They can refer back to their flipbook during check-ins to track and express emotions.
• Write a Letter to Your Emotions: Students pick a strong emotion they felt over the week and write a letter to it.

Check In Check Out Forms for SEL Needs | Feelings, Emotions, & Behavior Support
By Coconut Counselor
Grades: Not Specific

Check in with your elementary students using a simple check-in and check-out form. Older students can write down their feelings of reflection or emotional needs, while younger students might respond aloud to prompts about how things are with friends and family. 

Add simple SEL activities to your classroom

SEL doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Even a few minutes each day can give students the chance to notice their feelings, share their thoughts, and strengthen their classroom community. Simple SEL moments can make a big difference in helping kids feel connected and ready to learn.

• Do deep breathing exercises.
• Take a one-minute stretch.
• Give a random compliment.
• Write a thank-you note.
• Share a happy thought.
• Try a morning check-in.
• Give an emotion exit ticket.
• Share a goal-setting sheet.
• Play a “this or that” game.
• Try out “Two Truths and Lie.”
• Task students to find a friend who fits specific criteria. 
• Create a compliment circle.

Foster a growth mindset and relationship benefits with SEL

Research shared in the Psychological Bulletin shows that SEL has a statistically significant impact on improving students’ attitudes, prosocial behaviors, and academic achievement. When students are given the opportunity to name their feelings and notice what triggers them, it helps them manage emotions in a healthy and appropriate way. 

Beyond supporting self-management, SEL helps children strengthen relationships, reduce conflicts, and develop responsible decision-making skills. SEL activities for elementary students also allow them to reflect on their actions and understand the consequences. 

Send SEL to the forefront with TPT activities

Make SEL a natural part of your learning routine by weaving it into every area of your curriculum. Students can reflect on their emotions, strengthen their writing skills, and tackle real-world problems in subjects like science, all while building a strong, connected classroom community. TPT is here to support your class’s journey through elementary SEL resources. Make social-emotional learning a meaningful and impactful part of every school day.