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. 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, and adjust 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 adjacent 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 and treat formal lessons as optional until 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, and 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 a single 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. The sequencing logic — skills ordered so each term builds on the last — 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, cannot check an inference about a classmate before learning that inferences need checking, and cannot repair a conflict without regulation to get through the conversation. Curricula that treat SEL as a grab-bag of nice activities miss the dependency structure — which is why our year runs notice → manage → read others → 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.