One of the first things I learned as a new teacher is that I needed more activities than I would have ever imagined. The lessons I thought would take 45 minutes took 20, and we would be found playing awkward games of Simon Says. Challenging behaviors started showing up because students were bored. I didn’t have choice boards, early finisher bins, or extra coloring sheets printed. While I worked on getting time management down, I started creating a ton of extra materials for students to work on when they finished early.
This is when I also learned that finishing work before peers shouldn’t really be a badge of honor. It also shouldn’t be a ticket into getting more work to do! Often times early finisher activities are just additional academic work. While some students may enjoy this, many will not. This can turn into students stalling, goofing around, and other not so great behaviors to avoid the early finisher work bin.
I have had countless teachers tell me over the years that they feel like they just do not have time for social emotional learning activities in their already packed school day. While my first answer will always be, “Embed it in everything you’re already doing!”, my next response would be to try these choice boards!
What are SEL Early Finisher Choice Boards?
These choice boards are designed to provide meaningful, SEL focused, hands-on and non-academic seasonal tasks to participate in when students finish assigned work.
Each month’s choice board provides 8 choices of fun, quiet, independent and meaningful activities.
What makes them seasonal?
There are 12 boards included, one for every month of the year. The choice boards have a seasonal twist to them! Examples are building an igloo out of blocks in a winter month and writing a letter to a woman you admire for Women’s History Month. There is not an emphasis on mainstream religious holidays, however there is some exposure to holidays around the world.
Materials needed
Not many! These choice boards were carefully designed so that students could access them and the activities suggested fairly independently. The materials students might need would be very simple ones, like paper and blocks. I suggest previewing the choice boards before they’re shared for the month. This will allow you to have the materials possibly needed ready to go so students can access them easily as needed.
What makes them SEL related?
The activities on each board fall under the categories of the CASEL competencies. CASEL is the leader in social emotional learning, and their competency wheel guides many of my resources. Each activity will draw on a competency like self awareness, emotion management, gratitude, flexible thinking, organizing, or reflection.
