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Weekly Messaging (Dojo/Class Messengers):

Kindergarten:
  • Lesson 1: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that paying attention means watching, listening, and thinking carefully about something. They practice different ways of showing they’re paying attention. Try This at Home: Ask your child to show you how they can pay attention, for example, when you are reading a story with them or explaining how to do something.
  • Lesson 2: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn two important reasons for paying attention: to learn and to stay safe. Try This at Home: Ask your child why they think it’s important to pay attention during different activities, for example, when listening to information or instructions, when helping out with a task, or when crossing the street with you.
  • Lesson 3: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. They’ll practice encouraging their classmates (and themselves) while the class learns and practices a skill together: snapping their fingers. Try This at Home: Remind your child that everyone makes mistakes and that mistakes help us learn. Point out when you make mistakes or tell them a story about a time you learned something from making a mistake.
  • Lesson 4: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that it’s important to practice and keep trying in order to get better at something they want to learn. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to choose something they want to get better at (such as, tying their shoes, adding or subtracting, writing their name, dribbling a ball, or snapping their fingers). Set aside a few minutes each day for them to practice the skill, and highlight the progress they’re making.
  • Lesson 5: In this week’s lesson, your child will show what they’ve learned about the importance of paying attention, practicing, and continuing to try after making mistakes. They’ll put these skills to use while learning a rhyme with accompanying movements. Try This at Home: Ask your child to show and teach you the rhyme they learned, along with the movements, so you can do it together.
 
First Grade:
  • Lesson 1: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that paying attention can look different depending on the situation, for example, listening to the teacher during a lesson, or looking both ways before crossing the street. Try This at Home: Ask your child to show you how they can pay attention, for example, when you are reading a story with them, explaining a task, or crossing the street.
  • Lesson 2: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that a distraction is something that takes their attention away from something else. They’ll learn different ways to manage distractions, such as reminding themselves to focus, turning away from the distraction, changing places, or politely asking someone to stop a distracting behavior. Try This at Home: When you need to pay attention or focus on a task at home, ask your child to suggest some ways you can manage distractions.
  • Lesson 3: In this week’s lesson, your child will reflect on different skills they’ve learned and talk about how practice and continued effort helped them get better. Try This at Home: Talk with your child about different tasks and skills they have learned to do by themselves at home, for example, making their bed, getting themselves dressed, etc. Remind them that it took time and practice to get better at these things.
  • Lesson 4: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice using helpful thoughts to encourage themselves and keep going while learning a dance with their classmates. Try This at Home: Ask your child to suggest some helpful thoughts to encourage you or another family member to complete a challenging task (for example, a school/home/work project, or an exercise routine).
  • Lesson 5: In this week’s lesson, your child will show what they’ve learned about paying attention, managing distractions, and practicing as they learn to draw Pepito, a character from Second Step Elementary animated videos. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you about their experience learning to draw Pepito. Encourage them to draw a family portrait with Pepito in it as a way to keep practicing.
 
Second Grade: 
  • Lesson 1: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that their best skills have developed as a result of practicing, trying hard, and asking for help. Try This at Home: Ask your child to share with you what they’re good at and how they became good at it. Share with them something you’re good at and what you did to practice and try hard, and who you asked for help.
  • Lesson 2: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that mistakes tell us something’s not working and that they can respond to mistakes by asking for help, trying again, or making a small change to keep going. Try This at Home: Ask your child what a mistake tells them and what they can do to keep going after a mistake.
  • Lesson 3: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that helpful thoughts can help us keep going when we’re learning and unhelpful thoughts might make us want to give up. Try This at Home: Ask your child whether the thoughts they have when they’re learning something new are helpful or unhelpful. Ask your child to share examples of helpful thoughts they know.
  • Lesson 4: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to replace an unhelpful thought with a helpful thought so they can keep going when learning feels hard. Try This at Home: Ask your child how they might change an unhelpful thought into a helpful thought. Encourage them by using helpful thoughts at home.
  • Lesson 5: In this week’s lesson, your child will use what they’ve learned from the unit to give advice to someone who is struggling to learn something new. Try This at Home: Ask your child what advice they would give you if you were having a hard time learning something new.
 
Third Grade:
  • Lesson 1: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that when they learn something new, the brain changes as different parts of the brain begin to send messages to each other. Try This at Home: Ask your child to explain what happens in their brain when they learn something for the first time.
  • Lesson 2: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that every time they practice a new a skill, the brain gets better at sending the messages for that skill. Try This at Home: Ask your child to explain what happens in their brain when they practice.
  • Lesson 3: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that if they’re practicing a skill but not getting better, they can try a new way of practicing or find someone to learn from. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you something new they’ve been practicing at school. Ask if they can think of other ways to practice or someone they could learn from.
  • Lesson 4: In this week’s lesson, your child will work with a partner to make a practice plan that includes what they want to learn, how they will practice, and what they can do if they aren’t improving. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you what a practice plan includes.
  • Lesson 5: In this week’s lesson, your child will make their own practice plan. Try This at Home: Ask your child share their practice plan with you. If they brought it home, find a place to display it where they’ll see it every day. Check in to see how their plan is going, and support them if they need help adjusting their plans.
 
Fourth Grade:
  • Lesson 1: In this week’s lesson, your child’s class will work together to set a 2-week goal that’s specific, challenging, and doable. Try This at Home: Ask your child to describe their class goal and explain what makes it challenging and doable for their class. Tell your child about a goal you recently set and what makes it challenging and doable for you.
  • Lesson 2: In this week’s lesson, your child’s class will work together to make a good plan to reach their 2-week goal. Try This at Home: Ask your child to describe their plan to reach their class goal. What will they do? What will they need? Who can support them? Tell your child about a time when you made a plan to reach a goal.
  • Lesson 3: In this week’s lesson, your child’s class will work together to identify roadblocks that might be getting in the way as they work toward their 2-week goal. Then they’ll decide what they can change to remove or get around their roadblocks. Try This at Home: Ask your child if they’ve run into any roadblocks while working toward their class goal. If so, how will they work around them? Tell your child about a time you ran into a roadblock and what you did to overcome it.
  • Lesson 4: In this week’s lesson, your child’s class will reflect on their journey of working toward their 2-week goal. Try This at Home: Ask your child about their experience with setting a class goal and working toward it. What worked? What didn’t work? What could they do next time? Reflect on a goal you’ve worked toward and what you learned.
  • Lesson 5: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice the full goal-setting process as they work toward a 10-minute goal with a group. Try This at Home: Work with your child to make a list of 1-week goals you could set as a family. Choose one and make sure it’s specific, challenging, and doable. Follow the goal-setting process to make a plan, check in on how it’s going, and at the end of the week, reflect on how it went and what you could do next time.
 
Fifth Grade:
  • Lesson 1: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to set a goal that's right for them. A goal that's right for someone is specific, challenging, doable, and motivating. Try This at Home: Ask your child what their goal is and how they know it’s right for them. Encourage them to describe why it’s motivating to them. Talk to your child about a goal you reached in the past and why you chose that goal.
  • Lesson 2: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to make an effective plan to reach a goal. Try This at Home: Ask your child about their plan to reach their goal. What will they do? What will they need? Talk to them about how you can support them as they work toward their goal.
  • Lesson 3: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to evaluate their progress toward a goal and change their plan accordingly. Try This at Home: Talk to your child about the progress they’ve made toward their goal. Ask them if they’ve run into any roadblocks, and offer to help them think about how to keep moving forward.
  • Lesson 4: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to reflect on their experience working toward a goal. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you about their goal-setting journey, including what worked, what didn’t work, and what they could do next time. Tell your child about a goal that you set and worked toward. What worked, what didn’t work, and what did you learn?
  • Lesson 5: In this week’s lesson, your child will apply the full goal-setting process they learned in this unit to work toward a 10-minute goal of their choice. Try This at Home: Ask your child about the goal-setting process they learned in this unit and why it’s important. Encourage them to set a new short-term goal that's right for them and to follow the process they learned. Check in along the way to see how it’s going.
 
Grades 3-5 Recommended Picture Books: 
Grades K-2 Recommended Picture Books: 
 

Weekly Messaging (Dojo/Class Messengers):

Kindergarten:
  • Lesson 6: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn to use body language and context clues to figure out when someone feels happy. They’ll practice looking at the person’s face and body, as well as thinking about what’s going on in the situation. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to notice when others around them feel happy. Have them practice using body language and context clues to figure out when family members, friends, or characters in books, movies, or on TV might be feeling happy.
  • Lesson 7:  In this week’s lesson, your child will learn to use body language and context clues to figure out when someone feels sad. They’ll practice looking at the person’s face and body, as well as thinking about what’s going on in the situation. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to notice when others around them feel sad. Have them practice using body language and context clues to figure out when family members, friends, or characters in books, movies, or on TV might be feeling sad.
  • Lesson 8: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn to use body language and context clues to figure out when someone feels mad. They’ll practice looking at the person’s face and body, as well as thinking about what’s going on in the situation. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to notice when others around them feel mad. Have them practice using body language and context clues to figure out when family members, friends, or characters in books, movies, or on TV might be feeling mad.
  • Lesson 9: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn two ways to help themselves feel calm when they encounter strong feelings: asking for help and slow breathing. Try This at Home:
    Ask your child to tell you some ways they’ve learned to feel calm when they get upset. Have them teach you how to use slow breathing to feel calm.
  • Lesson 10: In this week’s lesson, your child will show that they can use body language and context clues to figure out how someone is feeling. They’ll also show they can use slow breathing as a way to help themselves feel calm when they encounter strong feelings. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you how they think others around them might be feeling, for example a sibling or a character in a story, a movie, or a TV show.
     
 
First Grade:
  • Lesson 6: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice using body language and context clues (looking at the person’s face and body, thinking about what’s going on in the situation) to figure out how someone is feeling. 
    Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you how they think others around them might be feeling, for example a sibling, or a character in a story, a movie, or a TV show.
  • Lesson 7: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn to use body language and context clues to figure out when someone feels worried. They’ll practice looking at the person’s face and body, as well as thinking about what’s going on in the situation. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to notice when others around them might feel worried. Have them practice using body language and context clues to figure out when family members, friends, or characters in books, movies, or on TV might be feeling worried.
  • Lesson 8: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn to use body language and context clues to figure out when someone feels calm. They’ll practice looking at the person’s face and body, as well as thinking about what’s going on in the situation. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to notice when others around them feel calm. Have them practice using body language and context clues to figure out when family members, friends, or characters in books, movies, or on TV might be feeling calm.
  • Lesson 9: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn to use body language and context clues to figure out when someone feels frustrated. They’ll practice looking at the person’s face and body, as well as thinking about what’s going on in the situation. They’ll also learn about a new strategy for feeling calm when they get frustrated: slow counting. Try This at Home: Encourage your child to notice when others around them feel frustrated. Have them practice using body language and context clues to figure out when family members, friends, or characters in books, movies, or on TV might be feeling frustrated.
  • Lesson 10: In this week’s lesson, your child will show that they can use body language and context clues to figure out how someone is feeling. They’ll also show that they know ways to help themselves feel calm when they encounter strong feelings. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you some ways they’ve learned to feel calm when they get upset. Have them teach you how to use slow counting to feel calm.
 
Second Grade: 
  • Lesson 6: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that we can feel proud when we accomplish something difficult or when we do something nice for others. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you about a time they felt proud. Tell them about a time you felt proud of something you accomplished or of doing something nice for others. 
  • Lesson 7: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that we can feel disappointed when something we want or expect does not happen. Try This at Home: Remind your child that everyone feels disappointed sometimes. Ask them what they can do to feel better the next time they’re feeling disappointed.
  • Lesson 8: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to use positive self-talk to help themselves feel better when they’re upset, disappointed, or worried. Try This at Home: Ask your child what they want to tell themselves when they’re having a tough day. Encourage them to use positive self-talk at home.
  • Lesson 9: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that people can have different feelings in the same situation because of their experiences. Try This at Home: Ask your child for an example of something that people can have different feelings about. Talk about the reasons people might have different feelings about it. 
  • Lesson 10: In this week’s lesson, your child will explain why their classmates have a different feeling from theirs in the same situation. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you what they learned about their classmates’ feelings and their own feelings.
 
Third Grade:
  • Lesson 6: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that emotions give us information about what we want or need. Try This at Home: Ask your child what information the emotions fear, sadness, and happiness give us.
  • Lesson 7: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn words for three degrees of anger: annoyed, angry, and furious. Try This at Home: Ask your child to explain the differences between feeling annoyed, angry, and furious.
  • Lesson 8: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how, when, and where to take a break in different situations as a way to manage a strong emotion. Try This at Home: Discuss where and how your child can take a break at home. Then ask your child how they could take a break in place, for example, in the car or at the grocery store.
  • Lesson 9: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn words for three degrees of happiness: content, happy, and excited. Try This at Home: Ask your child to explain the differences between feeling content, happy, and excited.
  • Lesson 10: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice identifying different intensities of the same feeling by giving personal examples. Try This at Home: Ask your child if they can give examples of times they felt strong emotions like furious or excited.
 
Fourth Grade:
  • Lesson 6: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that our brain works best when the logic and emotion centers are balanced and working together. Try This at Home: Tell your child about a time when a strong emotion made it hard for you to learn something new or caused you to say or do something that hurt someone’s feelings. Discuss why it’s important to learn to manage strong emotions.
  • Lesson 7: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn what it means to rethink a situation and how it can help them calm strong emotions. Try This at Home: Tell your child about a time when rethinking a situation, or thinking about it in a different way, helped you feel better. Encourage your child to talk about times in their lives when rethinking could have helped them.
  • Lesson 8: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn about questions they can ask to rethink situations and they’ll practice asking these questions using made-up stories. Try This at Home: Ask your child, “What questions could you ask yourself to rethink a situation?” (Questions might include, “What happened?” “Has this ever happened to anyone else?” and “What’s something good that happened?”) Talk about how those questions can help them think differently about a situation. 
  • Lesson 9: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice rethinking a situation they’ve personally experienced. Try This at Home: Ask your child, "How could rethinking help you the next time you’re in a situation where you feel a strong emotion?" It’s important to note that rethinking is not a good strategy to use when someone is hurt or in danger.
  • Lesson 10: In this week’s lesson, your child will work with a team to see how many different ways they can rethink a variety of situations. Try This at Home: With your child, create a “Rethink It!” chart to display at home. Make a list of questions that everyone can use to rethink when emotions are taking over and you just need a little help to see things in a different way.
 
Fifth Grade:
  • Lesson 6: In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that it’s possible to anticipate recurring situations that cause them to feel strong emotions so they can plan ways to manage those emotions in the future. Try This at Home: Tell your child about a recurring situation in your life that typically causes you to feel a strong emotion, like anger or frustration. Ask your child to tell you about similar situations in their life.
  • Lesson 7: In this week’s lesson, your child will identify signs of stress, situations that can cause them to feel stress, and strategies they can use to manage feelings of stress. Try This at Home: Ask your child what their body feels like when they’re stressed and what things cause them to feel stress. Share your own experiences with stress and what you do to manage it.
  • Lesson 8: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice breaking down situations that feel big and unmanageable into smaller, more manageable pieces. They will also practice identifying a small change someone could make to manage their strong emotions the next time a situation occurs. Try This at Home: Tell your child about a recurring situation in your life that typically causes you to feel a strong emotion, like stress or anger. Ask your child what you can change to make the situation better, and why they would suggest that change.
  • Lesson 9: In this week’s lesson, your child will practice identifying things that a person can or can’t change in a recurring situation that causes them to feel a strong emotion. Then they will focus on the things that can be changed to recommend something the person could think or do differently to manage their emotions in the future. Try This at Home: Ask your child if there’s anything coming up at school that makes them feel a strong emotion, like nervous, frustrated, or stressed. Ask them what they could think or do differently to make the situation easier to handle.
  • Lesson 10:In this week’s lesson, your child will practice identifying two changes they could make in a recurring personal situation to manage their strong emotions. Try This at Home: Ask your child to tell you about a situation at home that causes them to feel strong emotions, like anger or stress. Ask them what they could change about the situation to better manage their emotions. Talk about what you can do to help them implement the change.