ceciliafelsenstein Looking for engaging SEL activities? This post shares 6 Fun SEL Activities for High School Students! We all start our academic year with BTS games and icebreakers… and then what? Do we know our students enough? If they are new in class, do they feel part of it? Does everybody feel socially comfortable?
No! There’s always more to do… We can further work on Social Emotional Learning (SEL), no matter how much students know each other. Personal and Social Education is fundamental, and we, teachers must be aware of the importance of it, we must encourage working on these skills and we must demand our students to put them into practise.
Below you will find a list of 6 fun SEL activities for high school students with a brief explanation on how to go about them.
SEL Games or icebreakers
- This or that? Fun game in which the teacher reads or shows a cue and students choose either one or the other. Students can walk to one or the other side of the classroom (or they can sit down or stand up according to their choice. For example, Teacher reads: “summer or winter? or “introvert or extrovert?”. This game will help students learn about their classmates tastes or personalities and emphatize with others.
- Getting to know you: This is a fun one-pager which students need to complete with personal and academical information. Really useful for teachers to get to know their students and detect if they need help.
- Compass points: The teacher will stick 4 signs with the words “ALWAYS”, “SOMETIMES”, “OFTEN” and “NEVER” in opposite corners or walls of the room. He or she will read different prompts to their students and they will have to walk towards the sign they feel more identified with. In this way, students will be able to visually see where each of them stands and thus share a fun activity while getting to know each other better, strengthening bonds and reflecting on their emotions and personal habits.
- Getting to the core: This is a more personal activity to be done in two steps. Students need to reflect by working on self-awareness helping them stengthen their intrapersonal skills. First they will evaluate who they are and where they are standing now, and afer some time, a similar activity will be assigned demanding them to discover their true selves or who they really choose to be.
- Stand on the line if: This is a fun icebreaker for students to reflect on their likes, skills, tastes and also to work on social-awareness as they will visually see what their classmates select. Interesting discussions can crop up afterwards, generating a better classroom environment.
- One-pager: This SEL one pager helps students share their personal tastes and interests in a creative and fun way.
All these games or icebreakers aim at developing intra and interpersonal skills. They will help your students to break the ice, to get to know themselves, to get to know each other, to reflect on their emotions or habits, to strenthen bonds, to share, to have fun!
