14 fun SEL activities to bring families together during COVID-19

Posted on January 15, 2021

Respectful Ways is pleased to offer this checklist of fun activities that children of all ages can do with the whole family.

These activities foster creativity, discussions, imagination and growth. Your family will get to know each other better — and learn a few interesting skills along the way!

The CDC is still discouraging large gatherings to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Children especially are feeling additional anxiety, missing the freedom to visit friends or travel. Unknowingly, they may act out feelings of anger, resentment and depression at home.

Parents can get ahead of these natural feelings before they rear themselves in the forms of defiance, aggression and self-isolation.

Respectful Ways is an innovative online youth program that teaches character building and social-emotional learning. RW offers a series of listen, play and learn activities to help families recognize and navigate through potential negative feelings, understand their origins, and help everyone cope with this unusual situation.

Bookmark or download an INTERACTIVE version of the Fun Activities checklist.

Words in blue point to fun online resources related to the activities.
Check out the list of links below the image.

Related Links:

Younger Students

Play the Compliment Game: Video

A nature-based collage: Visual example

Make a delicious meal: 60 meal ideas under $10

Build a terrarium: Video

Draw a mandala: Video

Star and Night Sky identifier app: SkyView Free

Learn about Astronomy: NASA’s website for students

Older Students

How to Use Goals and Dreams to Achieve Success

Problem Solving with Teenagers

Authenticity: Sharable meme

Positive and Negative words: Word Cloud

Family Projects: 15 At-Home Family Activities for Teens and Tweens

Expand friendships: Respecting Diversity Begins with Self-Respect

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  Respectful Ways is flexible in that you may only have 5 minutes to work on a lesson in the morning, but you can pick back up where you left off later in the day or the next time you have a SEL block. You don’t have to start a lesson over if you don’t finish on time, so that’s a huge plus.

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  It’s helped me figure out things with my friends. Let’s say we’re not really getting along much, I can try to use some of the things to make it better.

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  School Counselor – FF4

  Respectful Ways (RW) helps take the lesson planning out of the equation as it already provides teachers with a brief overview of each lesson that’s ready to instruct without much effort. RW hits current Georgia and national standards along the way in each module. With the various modules hitting on a wide variety of topics, RW allows us to pinpoint modules for teaching to meet our PBIS goals.

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  My kids are so excited to see those signs, and they are excited to remind others when they see them. It also gives me clues…I appreciate the visuals to use with the children.

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  I like the program because it teaches you lessons for life and it teaches you more ways to be nice to people than what you can already think of.

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  School Counselor – FF2

  As we were approaching the testing season, I pulled a small group of 5th graders to work on a module about not giving up. This was to encourage them to push through when things were difficult. At the end of the lesson, each student had the ability to make their own meme. Several students held onto their memes and would remind me of how much they enjoyed that lesson. 

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  School Counselor – FF3

  The Respectful Ways music and interactive boards (where they can see their own ideas typed out) is a big draw for my students. Especially in the younger grades, they really enjoy it because it’s so interactive.

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  School Counselor, Stone Mountain, GA

  I found the discussion very helpful to the students. It allowed them to really think about what the word respect means. Sometimes we use words and we understand them on a surface level but this allowed the kids to really understand what the word “respect” means.

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  School Counselor, Stone Mountain, GA

  The Post It Note Activity was the most helpful. The students really took to drawing pictures of those they love!

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  Breaking down the poem was very insightful for me to hear their understanding of the poem. I also feel that they connected more with the poem by understanding it line for line.

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