Term

Fall 2021

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAT

Facilitator(s)

Laura Halldin

Content Expert

Jeff Finke

Abstract

Research has shown that stress, negative emotions, and trauma all affect a students’ ability to learn and achieve in school. Thus, there has been a worthwhile movement to incorporate structured social and emotional learning programs into elementary schools. The goal of these programs are to help students develop critical social and emotion regulation skills that are required to adapt to school environments and achieve academically. The curriculum designed for this project focuses on teaching kindergarten students emotion regulation skills as well as make them aware of their own brain development. The content of the curriculum was influenced by by these books: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing (Perry & Szalavitz, 2017) and The Yes Brain (Siegel & Bryson, 2018). Both of these works stressed the importance of teaching children about their own brain development in order to help them better adapt socially and emotionally at home and in school. The goal of this curriculum is to give students the knowledge to identify and cope with their emotions and educate them on how the brain grows and learns. The curriculum will also help them advocate for themselves and prioritize their mental well-being, as well as help them develop skills that are critical to achieve academically.

Project Type

Curriculum

Keywords

Curriculum, Early Childhood, Social Emotional Learning

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Projects

Included in

Education Commons

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