A free SEL curriculum map
How this sequence is built
SEL skills have prerequisites the way math skills do. Regulation without emotion vocabulary is a script without words, and repair without regulation collapses into a second argument. So we ordered the year the way open prerequisite-mapped curricula order micro-skills: each term's work assumes only what earlier terms taught. Run one lesson a week and one daily activity. Adjust the pace freely — the order matters more than the calendar.
Term 1 — Notice and name
Term 2 — Manage and wait
Term 3 — Read the room
Term 4 — Work it out together
Adapting by grade band
The map lists lessons across bands. Teach the ones tagged for yours, and borrow the next band's variations — every lesson's variations section says how to shift it up or down. Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms should lean on the activities library (weather check-in, mirror movement, belly breathing) for terms 1–2. Treat formal lessons as optional there until the K–2 lessons fit. High school is not covered here yet. The 6–8 material stretches upward imperfectly, and we would rather say that than pretend.
Curriculum questions
What is the best SEL curriculum?
Honestly: the one your school will actually run every week. Widely adopted commercial programs — Second Step, Character Strong, Harmony, Kimochis, Quaver and others — bring scripted scope-and-sequence, training, and evidence files. We do not review or rank them here, because we have not evaluated them in classrooms. What this page offers instead is free: a skill-sequenced year, built from our own lessons and activities, that one teacher can run without a purchase order. Many schools use a free sequence like this to build habits before committing curriculum budget.
Is this an evidence-based SEL curriculum?
No, and we will not borrow that phrase. "Evidence-based" properly means a program whose specific materials were studied in controlled evaluations, which ours have not been. Our sequencing logic orders skills so that each term builds on the last. That follows the same design principle as researched frameworks like the CASEL five competencies, and each lesson explains its own reasoning. If your district requires a formally evaluated program, this page is a supplement, not a substitute.
Why sequence SEL skills at all?
Because the skills stack. A student cannot manage a feeling they cannot name. They cannot check an inference about a classmate before learning that inferences need checking. And they cannot repair a conflict without the regulation to get through the conversation. Curricula that treat SEL as a grab-bag of nice activities miss that structure. It is why our year runs notice, then manage, then read others, then work it out together, in that order.
Can I use this for homeschool or a small co-op?
Yes, with one adaptation. Many lessons use pair and circle formats, so in very small groups the adult plays the partner role, and "class norms" become family or co-op norms. The sequence itself holds at any group size. The printable lesson skeleton makes weekly planning close to zero-prep.