Forgo the standards. I hate to do it, but I just might have to… start singing… “let it go, let it go…” Okay, it has been done and I deeply apologize. I know that will be roaming around in all of our heads for a while. The sentiment is there, though. Many of the projects or ideas listed here don’t directly meet state or national standards- and maybe that is okay right now. These activities will help you focus on the social and emotional needs of your students as we close out this school year - distance learning style!
Create a vision board for the future
What do your students hope to see as a result of current events, or what do they hope for their particular future? If they want to tackle the topics up for grabs about how this pandemic could and maybe even should change the world, let them. Maybe they just want to craft a vision board for their own future. It could be about how they plan to spend their summer, what they hope for as they finish school, or even a grander plan for their entire life. I think leaving this open to interpretation is just perfect for our current situation. Students can take this where they need it to go, and there just aren’t any wrong answers for a change! This is a great tool to help meet students emotional needs through personal reflection and goal setting!
Graffiti wall – Digital Version
I have used graffiti walls in my classroom to allow students to collaborate on a bulletin board display. The topic might be adding quotes from a text we have read, reflecting on a character, interesting vocabulary words, etc. But, I started thinking that a graffiti wall would be a great place for supporting students emotional needs during this time. Students can share their thoughts, concerns, messages of hope and positivity, reflections, aspirations, and more. In my classroom, this would be easy to set up. Some paper on the bulletin board, a few pretty markers, done. But, alas, we are not in our classrooms, so I turned instead to Padlet.
Padlet is a great tool for getting students to respond to a prompt, question, or text. You can create a ‘wall’ for students to post their ideas upon. You can generate a link to share with your students while keeping this wall private from general public viewing, which is important for student privacy. Students can add videos, links, or just chat with one another. Before I opened this graffiti wall with students, we worked together in our required Zoom session to establish norms for this graffiti wall/board. A major talking point was that these messages needed to be school appropriate, so I do monitor this graffiti wall to make sure that this is happening.
Take what you need wall- Digital Version
Within the realm of graffiti walls, you could create a ‘take what you need’ board for your students. This could also be done using Padlet. You can post messages of hope, strength, and support; students can come to this digital wall as they need. You can also invite students to create messages for others here on this digital wall. This helps student support each other in their social and emotional needs.
Set goals for the summer or next school year – regardless of what that might look like.
It is hard to know exactly what the summer or even next school year will look like, but sometimes it is calming to focus on what we can control – in this case the goals we have for ourselves. This could be an academic goal or personal goal. I told my students that I wanted to become one of those teachers with beautiful, fancy handwriting. They didn’t believe that I ever could obtain this skill based on the chicken scratch they are used to seeing on the whiteboard. But, I explained that I bought a book and some pretty pens and I was ready to practice this summer. This was something I found calming and relaxing; it was something I could control when there were so many things that I could not control. Across the zoom meeting, heads began to nod in understanding. Their goal might not be to become a better hand letterer – if that is even a word, but they understood the power in taking control of something that mattered to them. Many of my students vowed to become better basketball players or dancers over the summer. Some said that they would read more, other said that they would like to learn a new language. The goals varied, but the power they possessed remained the same. You can grab a digital and printable goal setting activity here.
Spreading acts of kindness.
I was taking a walk the other day and I came across this painted rock along the side of the road. It simply said, “you are okay.” I won’t lie, I got so emotional over this little painted rock. I walked along a bit further to find another that said “be happy.” What a startling impact this had on me. Someone took the time to paint this rock with a positive message and leave it along this path for people to find. It was truly powerful. There are little messages like this all over. People are putting hearts in their windows, messages in sidewalk chalk, helping hands delivering foods, creating masks… The list goes on and on. The point of this little side story is that I took this idea home with me. I shared the pictures I took of these rocks with my children (yes, I did leave them home from this particular walk, because sometimes mom needs some ‘me’ time) and asked them if they wanted to create some positive messages to share. We spent the afternoon painting rocks, creating funny, cleaver, and positive messages, all the while laughing and connecting. We placed them all over our little community, and we all felt so powerful in a time where this feeling is fleeting. This is a great way to work on your students emotional needs during this time.
Use activities that help students focus on what they can control
Try a couple of the fun activities in this free resource. Your students can create a bumper sticker to share their message with the world, create a march for the cause sign to advocate for something they believe in. These fun activities are low key and low stress, but they help students focus on the things they can control instead of focusing on those that they cannot.
Throw a “Come as your Future Self” party
Sometimes looking to the future can help us deal with a present that is not so pleasant. It might be fun to throw a Google Meet or Zoom party where students can come dressed as their future self. They might wear a business suit, a basketball jersey, a dance costume, scrubs, an apron, etc. They can chat with each other about their future dreams. This will work better for some grade levels more than others. My high schoolers would have either loved or hated this idea, but my 6th graders (from many moons ago) would have LOVED this activity! But what a great social activity for students that supports both their social and emotional learning needs!
Letter to my future self
This year has been full of firsts and lasts for students. Depending on the age of your students, they may be graduating and moving on to college or “adulting.” Others may be going from underclassmen to upperclassmen or middle school to high school. No matter how old, they are going to see significant changes in themselves over the next year. The end of the year is a great time for writing to our future selves, setting goals, making predictions, talking about family, dreams, and expectations.
I use the handout to the right to help my student brainstorm topics for this letter. Click here to grab this free resource. Historically, this would be a paper/pencil assignment, and we would go the whole 9-yards to create a real-letter writing experience, complete with stamps and an envelope. However, with our classrooms becoming more virtual, I’ve come up with a more modern take on this classic end-of-the-year assignment.
Virtual Option: Send it now! Since we are doing this letter virtually, why not add a fun little digital twist to this activity. Ask students to send the messages to you in an email, and you can immediately forward the email back to them and schedule it to send on this same day the following year. If you want the letters to be personal and confidential, ask students to put the letter into an email that they can schedule to deliver to them exactly one year from the date. Scheduling emails is easy to do on Gmail, and ensure the letters (or emails) will be delivered! A second option I suggest is using the FutureMe.Org website. Students can craft their own email and set a date to have this delivered right back to their own inbox. Some students do prefer this method because it keeps their notes secret, as it really should be.
Reflection – taking time to reflect.
Consider a Reflect ‘n’ Sketch activity. Students can reflect on their situation, the situation of the world, of our country, of this pandemic… whatever feels important to them. I love the Reflect ‘n’ Sketch option for reflecting on learning – I have a quick activity here if you are interested – but, I think this can easily be applied to any type of reflection. Students can use words, drawings, magazine pictures, internet images, color, blurbs, quotes, etc. to reflect. This leaves the door open to all types of learners as they reflect on learning or life. I have found great success with this method in the past and have loved this for our current distance learning situation as well.
Discussion time – Time to talk to each other and with you.
I asked my students to complete a survey recently about how they were feeling. One question in particular was, “what do you miss most about our classroom?” I was surprised to see that so many students missed our discussion time. They just need time to interact with each other and with me. I created a Google Meet session that was entirely devoted to just chatting; I titled it, “Chat Session.” Clever, right? No content, no review, no assignments, just come if you wish and we’ll chat about life. What was most amazing about this time was its impact on me. I miss my students and their smelly 8th grade weirdness and angst. I miss all of it. These times together helped me as much as it helped them! Together we met our social needs so we could continue our learning within the next class sessions!