Teaching Critical SEL Skills Using Picture Books

(Grades PreK-3) / Flex Course

PDI Course Number: 123T02 / UCSD Course Number: EDUC40360

Course Description

Does the prospect of finding a way to incorporate the teaching of critical social-emotional issues send you into a quandary? Do you have a deep love for using authentic children’s literature in your current teaching practices? If so, look no further! Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a process for learning essential life skills such as decision making, problem solving, effective communication, empathy, perseverance, and coping, just to name a few. Teachers are searching for the most effective ways to introduce and teach appropriate social-emotional skills in the classroom as they relate to common classroom issues, some of which can be quite sensitive, and which almost always are beyond their control. This online course provides the perfect approach by using high-quality picture books to deal with a variety of SEL issues from separation anxiety, kindness, and tattling, to poverty and homelessness, divorce, anger management, childhood health and obesity, teasing and bullying, and others. Teachers will be provided with thorough background information on each topic as well as the implications for the classroom environment and teaching. Then, each topic shares three authentic children’s books, together with lessons for each title. The course introduces lesson plans for forty-seven picture books. An additional list of picture books is shared for every single social-emotional topic presented in the course, as well as links to additional resources, as applicable. By the end of this course, teachers will feel more confident and successful in their quest to embed the teaching of social-emotional skills into their own teaching practices. This course is worth 3 ⅓ semester units/5 quarter units (50 hours of training) from University of California San Diego (UCSD) Division of Extended Studies. For detailed information on university credit, click here.

"The content of the course was very appropriate for my grade and level that I teach. I enjoyed that each area of the course was paired with multiple picture books and a variety of activities to teach the idea. I now want to go buy many of the books presented in this course!!!" - Mary Reich