Lessons by CASEL competency
Self-awareness
Naming feelings
Students identify and label emotions using age-appropriate vocabulary.
Feelings thermometer
Students rate the intensity of an emotion on a 1–5 scale and name one thing that changes the number.
Strengths inventory
Students name one strength they recognize in themselves, hear one a peer sees in them, and note where the two differ.
Where feelings live in the body
Students map where they physically feel emotions and use body signals as an early-warning system.
Two feelings at once
Students recognize that two feelings can be true at the same time, and practice naming both.
Self-management
Waiting my turn
Students practice one concrete strategy for waiting (hands busy, count silently, watch the speaker) and name which works for them.
Conflict pause
Students use a pause strategy before responding during disagreement.
Goal, obstacle, plan
Students set a one-week goal, predict the most likely obstacle, and write a specific if-then plan for it.
My calming strategies menu
Students build a personal menu of three calming strategies and identify when each one fits.
Mistakes that taught somebody something
Students reframe mistakes as information and practice the "not yet" response to failure.
Relationship skills
Active listening circle
Students practice listening without interrupting and paraphrasing a peer's idea.
Repair after rupture
Students practice a three-part repair (name it, own it, offer something) after a small social rupture, without over-apologizing.
Asking for help
Students practice asking for help with specific words, and learn that asking is a skill rather than a failure.
Roles that make groups work
Students experience how named roles improve group work and identify which role fits them.
Assertive, not aggressive
Students distinguish passive, aggressive, and assertive responses, and practice the assertive middle.
Giving and receiving feedback
Students practice giving specific, kind, useful feedback and receiving it without collapse or counterattack.
Responsible decision-making
Problem size, problem response
Students sort problems by size (small, medium, big) and match the size of their response to the size of the problem.
Whose decision is it?
Students distinguish decisions that are theirs alone, shared, or someone else's, and identify who is affected by each.
Bullying, bystanders, and upstanders
Students distinguish bullying from conflict, and learn three safe upstander moves.
Peer pressure and the exit lines
Students identify pressure tactics and rehearse exit lines that preserve both the refusal and the friendship where possible.
About the framework
What is the CASEL framework?
CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) publishes the most widely used SEL framework in US schools. It names five interrelated competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. The definitions on this page paraphrase CASEL's published wording at casel.org.
Do I need to teach the competencies in order?
No. The five areas are interrelated rather than sequential, and CASEL does not prescribe an order. In practice, self-awareness lessons make a comfortable starting point because they require the least social risk from students, and skills like repair and conflict management ask more once norms are established.
Why does one lesson map to only one competency?
Honestly, most lessons touch two or three. We tag each lesson with the competency it works hardest, so the index stays useful for planning. Read the objective line to see what else a lesson covers.
Social awareness
Understanding the perspectives of others and empathizing, including across differences.
Gratitude share
3–5 · 15 minutes
Students express specific gratitude to strengthen classroom community.
Reading the room
3–5 · 20 minutes
Students infer how someone might feel from posture, expression, and context, and check the inference instead of assuming it.
Assume the backstory
6–8 · 20 minutes
Students generate at least two alternative explanations for a peer's behavior before settling on a judgment.