Grab and Go SEL Activities and Routines

• Meghan Kennedy
• Posted 7/1/25
• 0 comments

1. Developing/expressing identity  
2. Managing emotions  
3. Achieving/setting goals  
4. Feeling/showing empathy  
5. Establishing/maintaining relationships  
6. Making responsible decisions  

Students often come in and out of our classrooms in quick rotations, so finding time to devote to SEL can be tricky. However, there are many ways to incorporate SEL into our daily routines and through short activities. This natural integration of SEL skills positively impacts classroom culture and students’ ability to feel comfortable in that environment. Check out my suggestions below, and after each activity, I’ve cited which skills it touches on: 

• Meeting students at the door is a great opportunity to greet each student by name and to check in with the teacher. Sometimes the homeroom teacher may need to share about something impacting students so that you can check in with those students as needed.   
• A visual chart of emotions (where students can point to the emotion that best matches how they are feeling) is also an option for a quick check-in.   
• This is also a time to have conversations with students as they settle. Personal connections can be fostered when students are asked and feel comfortable sharing about their days, extracurricular activities, and other important things in their lives.   

This routine can help develop the following skills: establishing/maintaining relationships, managing emotions, and achieving/setting goals.

• Class schedules provide an order of events that help set students’ expectations. There are many ways to present this to students – written on the board, a digital version projected on the board, or as a visual schedule incorporating images for each activity.  

This routine can help develop the following skills: achieving/setting goals. 

• Refocusing through quiet breathing is a great way to ease the transition into the music room and help students settle and reset for this part of their day. For focused breathing in my classroom, students are welcome to sit or lie down with their eyes open or closed and breathe as we listen to a mindful breathing exercise.  
  • I love using breathing exercises found on headspace.com (you can get a free account if you sign up with your educator email address!). Headspace has a series of mindfulness for kids with themes such as kindness, paying attention, relaxing, appreciation, settling down, focusing, staying positive, and cooling off after a negative situation. These themes help focus the breathing exercises to match the needs of students.  

This activity can help develop the following skills: establishing/maintaining relationships, managing emotions, achieving/setting goals, making responsible decisions, and developing/expressing identity. 

• Affirmations help establish a positive mindset. I have five affirmations displayed in my classroom that we read every day: “I am calm. I am focused. I can do hard things. I can choose kindness. I am important”. My goal is for students to internalize these as mantras so they can utilize them during other parts of their day. 

This activity can help develop the following skills: developing/expressing identity, achieving/setting goals, managing emotions, feeling/showing empathy, and making responsible decisions. 

• Mission statements reflect the values of your classroom including classroom culture, relationships between students, expectations of individuals, and goals of your classroom/program. This is an opportunity for students’ voices to be heard as they help craft the mission statement. At the beginning of the year, I take suggestions from each class and summarize common ideas to craft our mission statement. Then every student signs our mission statement once it’s finalized!  

This activity can help develop the following skills: achieving/setting goals, managing emotions, establishing/maintaining relationships, feeling/showing empathy, and making responsible decisions. 

• I start each class with a short activity that engages the students in a conversation either through a game, prompt, listening, or visual exercise. This allows students to express themselves, connect with others, and have an icebreaker to help them feel comfortable at the start of class. I’ll share a few favorites below: 

Would you rather?  

• In this game, students are presented with two options and they need to pick which one they’d prefer (ex. Would you rather sing or dance?). Students can discuss this in small groups, raise their hands, or do a movement game to show their answers. For the movement game, assign a section of the room to each answer and students move to match their choices.  

This activity can help develop the following skills: establishing/maintaining relationships and developing/expressing identity. 

Listening exercise with a prompt:  

• Select a piece of music to play as students enter the room and include a question/prompt on the board for them to consider as they listen (ex. “How does the music make you feel?”, “What do you think the composers/singer was feeling?”, “What do you think the music is about?”).  
• You could also do a draw and listen where students draw what the music makes them feel/think about. 

This activity can help develop the following skills: feeling/showing empathy, managing emotions, and developing/expressing identity.. 

Come to the middle if…  

• Students sit in a circle and move into the middle if they relate to the prompt. This is a great way to find similarities between classmates. (ex. “come to the middle if you have a sibling”, “come to the middle if you were born in a different state/country”, etc.) 

This activity can help develop the following skills: establishing/maintaining relationships and developing/expressing identity. 

Get to know you: 

• Break students into small groups and provide a list of questions for them to ask each other (“What’s your favorite food?”, “Do you have a pet?”, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”, etc). This helps foster relationships as students find similarities as they share about themselves and get to know their classmates.  

This activity can help develop the following skills: establishing/maintaining relationships, developing/expressing identity, and feeling/showing empathy. 

These activities are attainable ways to help set an environment where students can develop/express their identity, manage their emotions, achieve/set goals, feel/show empathy, establish/maintain relationships, and learn responsible decision-making. Even small activities and routines have a big impact on classroom culture. SEL sets a positive tone where students can feel recognized, represented, respected, and where they can connect with their classmates. Implementing activities like these in your classroom helps students develop skills that will impact them throughout their lives. 

Headspace (n.d.). Mindfulness with Kids. Headspace.com. Retrieved February 8, 2025, from https://my.headspace.com/modes/meditate/topic/99