Elementary (Grades 3-5)

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

CASEL Core Competencies

• Self-Awareness

• Self-Management

• Social Awareness

• Relationship Skills

• Responsible Decision-Making

Common Core ELA-Literacy

• Listening and Speaking

• Writing

NCSS Social Studies Themes

• Individual Development and Identity

• Explain what a caring classroom community looks, sounds, and feels like.

• Establish a set of agreements (ground rules) for working with one another in the classroom.

• Explain why their agreements will help them keep the class a caring community.

• Agreements

• Behaviors

• Beliefs

• Feelings

Give to each student a copy of the worksheet “What Does a Caring Classroom Community Look Like, Sound Like, Feel Like?”

Ask students to use the list of behaviors and beliefs they generated in the circle and to use the list to choose the six to eight that are most important to them and put them in either the Look Like or the Sound Like columns on the worksheet. State: If anyone can think of a new
behavior or belief that we did not yet come up with, please put it on
your worksheet. Tell students they have five minutes to decide on the items most important to them and put them on the worksheet.

After five minutes, ask students to put down in the Feels Like column all the feeling words that come to mind when they look at the first two columns of their worksheet. Tell them they have three to four minutes to generate their list of feeling words. Ask students to share their responses.

On the posted chart papers titled Looks Like, Sounds Like, and Feels Like, chart student responses until you have a full list for each column. Ask if any of the responses in the Looks Like or Sounds Like columns were new. Ask students who added words, if any, to explain why they added them.

Ask the class if everyone is in agreement to add these behaviors or beliefs. If anyone does not agree, ask the student or students to explain why they feel the way they do so that the rest of the class understands where they are coming from. Facilitate a dialogue between students or reframe the new suggestion to see if clarity or wording changes will result in adding the new words. If agreement cannot be reached about the new words, tell the class you are going to set aside these new suggestions for discussion in the next few days.

Read the complete list of words in the Feels Like column. Ask students why they think it is important to feel these ways in class every day. Ask students how they think having these feelings about their classroom community will help them. Ask them to give reasons why they think the way they do. State: I am going to pass the talking piece
around again, asking each one of you to state “yes” or “no” if you
understand all the ideas that have been shared.

Model by holding the talking piece and saying: I understand or I do not understand X (if a particular statement was unclear). Then pass the talking piece to the next person in the circle. The talking piece is passed around the circle until everyone says “yes” to understanding.

State: I am going to pass the talking piece around again, asking
each of you to state if you will follow the beliefs about caring the
circle has shared. If you disagree, please tell us why. Model by stating: I agree, and then passing the talking piece to the student to the left or right.

If the talking piece goes around and everyone agrees, then say: We have all agreed on how we will treat one another each day in our
caring community. If one or more students disagree, then when the talking piece gets back to you, ask the circle: What will make our
caring community work? Pass the talking piece around the circle. Provide additional cards as needed for students to add new words to the centerpiece. When it comes back, hold the talking piece and state: I agree, and then pass the talking piece left or right. Do this until all agree.