Do you use books to foster a positive classroom community? I think children’s books can be one of the best tools for teaching social and emotional learning. A good SEL children’s book should written in a way that is relatable to students without being intimidating. I love all of the Jory John Books. They are cute and funny, with different foods as the characters. They are such great books to talk about character development, social emotional learning, and growth mindset. The Bad Seed is a great interactive read aloud for talking about character traits and social emotional learning. The Bad Seed starts off very grumpy and unkind. But, by the end of the story, he decides he wants to be kind. Although, he is not perfect, he keeps trying to be kind. You can use my affiliate link to buy the book here. In my classroom, I have several of the stuffed animals for book buddies. They are also great in calm down corner. I ordered mine from Amazon, but my coworker got them at Barnes and Nobles.
The Bad Seed is a great book for discussing story elements There are several character and settings. He actually has several problems, and the only solution is that he learns to eb kind. This is why I love using this book for character development and growth mindset. We has great discussions around the following topics.
🩷What are good choices we can make?
🩷How can we turn a bad day around?
🩷What are kind words we can use?
There are 12 writing prompts in this unit, including writing activities for the discussions above.
We have had solid classroom discussion on what a bad seed looks like and how we can be a good seed instead. For every mean word choice, we can change it around to a kind word choice. We made this anchor chart and have it hanging in our classroom to refer back to.so talk about how the Bad Seed was perfect at being kind, but he kept trying. There are great examples in the book that can use for kind words, such as thank you and please. I really like to use books that address social and emotional learning in my classroom. They provide starting points for great conversations. I highly recommend all of the John Jory books for cultivating a positive classroom community that encourages growth mindset.
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