Teaching with Smiles & SEL: Personal and Social Core Competencies Book List

Personal and Social Core Competencies

Book List by @sd36msjames

Link to PDF of booklist https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4ibP_aOqbdgY0pjVkFEMG5nbE0/view?usp=sharing

*Positive Personal and Cultural Awareness*

*Personal Awareness and Responsibility*

*Social Responsibility*

Background knowledge- I created this book list for a summer class in Human Development and Theory as part of my Master's Degree in Self-Regulated Learning at UBC. My passion and teaching philosophy is rooted in Social Emotional Learning. Last year I did a lot of work with the Core Competencies, teaching, and making them come alive in my classroom. This often took place through lessons involving Children's Literature. As a massive picture book lover, creating the following book list for my final course project gave me the excuse to go to Kids Books in Vancouver, and add more beautiful titles to my ever growing picture book collection and do some useful planning for next year. I chose to structure many of my lessons and activities that I have included in my core competency book list around activities that foster group work, create positive peer interaction and positively influence students development, and personal identity. Through activities that increase communication, focus on knowing ourselves, our identity, and sharing it with others we increase the sense of belonging, and understanding all which are a central to Human Development Theories. I hope you find the book list helpful and that it might be a starting point for your own core competency journey. If you would like the PDF version feel free to comment below or direct message me on twitter @sd36msjames

Grades Planning for: Grades 3-6. I teach grade 4/5 and use these books in my classroom and teaching, but the books are easily adaptable for all Elementary age students and work or project ideas can be modified and adapted depending on age. All books are Social Emotional Learning Children’s Literature. The books can be used to introduce a concept, start a discussion, or lead into a a project to deepen their understandings of the core competencies, and knowing themselves as a learner.

Ideas, Suggestions, and Information that is important to understanding prior to teaching:

A suggestion from someone who has actively used many of these books in my classroom, and focused last year teaching the core competencies would be that it would be important for students to have some level of familiarity with BC’s New Curriculum and Core Competencies, language and understanding. Otherwise you might want to introduce the concepts and/or vocabulary with your students prior to reading the book, or give them some direction with your learning intention as to what you are focusing on during the read aloud and following literature activities. Depending on the age, you could read the Core Competency documents together and brainstorm what they mean to your class, create your own definitions, vocabulary, what they mean to you. You could also create as a class core competency posters, snapping photos of in action competency displays and practice, therefore students have a visual and a personal connection to the concepts. I would suggest that as a teacher you would want to integrate naming the core competencies when you see students positively displaying them in action in class so students familiarity builds and they can make personal connections to the core competencies and understand them in the context of their own classroom and personal experiences. For instance, in a situation where student a student is persevering to complete a task when it is challenging them, example STEM challenge a Teacher could say “I really like that you did not give up when you found the task challenging, and your first design didn't work. I like that you problem solved ways to complete the task and just kept trying, you didn't give up. You demonstrated perseverance which is an important Personal Awareness core competency, well done X! Lastly, prior to teaching you need to know that Core Competencies can be woven into all curriculum and in class activities, they do not have to be a separate subject. For integration purpose’s it works well to teach students through Social Emotional Learning activities and Children’s Literature that supports and enhances the concepts, however feel free to bring them in and nurture them in every subject. I love having students do self-reflections and assessments on core competencies to deepen their understanding of themselves as learners, as well as self-assessments. We do so in learning reflection journals as well as on our Digital Communicating Student Learning portfolios on Freshgrade. These set of skills are constantly growing, evolving and all students are at different stages of their journey, nurture, motivate and help them grow as individuals and having record of that growth and learning journey is an amazing thing to capture.