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    SELF-AWARENESS 7th-8th GRADES

    Self-Awareness Competencies

    7th- 8th Grades Indicators of Self-Awareness 

    1. Demonstrate an awareness of own emotions and the complexity of different emotions.

    ●       Identifies interaction between personal qualities and interests with academic activities and social opportunities.

    2. Demonstrate an awareness of personal qualities and interests..

    ●       Evaluates influence of personal strengths, qualities and interests on decision-making and goal-setting.

    3. Demonstrate an awareness of own strengths and limitations.

    ●       Implements a plan to build on strengths or address limitations.

    4. Demonstrate a sense of personal responsibility and advocacy.

    ●       Identifies areas of school and life that are within personal control.

    ●       Recognizes, establishes, and adheres to personal boundaries and responsibilities.

    ●       Explains the connection between choice and responsibility and consequences involved if engaged in risky and harmful behaviors.

    5. Identify external and community resources and support.

    ●       Identifies positive peer/adult support when needed.

    ●       Recognizes outside influences on the development of personal traits and discerns whether they are supportive or non-supportive.

    SEL Academic Integrated Strategies for Self-Awareness

    7th-8th Grades

    ●   Assume the best, students want to learn content, procedures, and behavior.

    ●   Focus on a safe, welcoming class climate; use that verbiage with the class.

    ●   Greet students individually at the threshold.

    ●   Tell individual students you missed them when returning from an absence.

    ●   Call students by name, correctly pronouncing students’ names.

    ●   Acknowledge students’ ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

    ●   Display a variety of cultural examples in your room décor.

    ●   Circulate among student seating arrangements during work time.

    ●   Pepper in gratitude all day for students following expectations and noticeable improvements.

    ●   Teach procedures explicitly, rehearsing often, praising progress.

    ●   Hold classroom meetings as needed for critical discussions.

    ●   Ask students to examine historical characters and how they communicated their emotions.

    ●   Role-play with students using situations that occur in the classroom (e.g., have one student act as a bully while another is the victim); then, have them process how they might feel.

    ●   Help students understand that anger is a secondary emotion and to identify that before anger, an often-unnoticed primary emotion is evident, such as sadness, jealousy, or embarrassment.

    ●   Ask students to write a short story, complete with illustrations, which describes a situation that made them angry without using the words anger, angry, or mad.

    ●   Ask students to role-play a customer service situation with an angry customer. Discuss the different feelings the employee helping the angry customer may have in this situation and the outcome of acting on each of those feelings.

    ●   Ask the class to design an activity together to ensure that all members have a task aligned to their interests and/or strengths.

    ●   Hold a career fair for students to begin thinking about how to align interests to a career.

    ●   Conduct a persuasive essay contest on what clubs or activities should be added to the school.

    ●   Have students complete a character study from required class reading on how the characters’ personal qualities and interests impacted their decisions.

    ●   Practice with students to recognize their body signals when they are experiencing a negative peer pressure situation.

    ●   Administer appropriate career inventory tests to identify students’ strengths and potential careers.

    ●   Ask students to design and complete a project based on strengths and interests and how to apply those to postsecondary opportunities.

    ●   Have students reflect and write a paper on potential areas of growth identified through self-reflection.

    ●   Have students’ research career and college interests and learn about specific job responsibilities. Then, have students write a cover letter for the job detailing how they can perform the responsibilities.

    ●   Ask students to identify a potential challenge encountered in school and write, act out, or role-play how they could advocate to prevent the challenge from being a problem.

    ●   As a class project, have students design a brochure detailing safety issues and procedures regarding common scenarios and behaviors.

    ●   Have students write their own ‘report card’ in which they grade themselves on how well they are following through on their responsibilities, adding

    comments that defend the grade.

    ●   Conduct a school scavenger hunt for students about where to find support and when to access that support.

    ●   As a classroom project, have students develop a public service announcement for extracurricular activities at school, and include information about how that activity will benefit them and why students should join.

    ●   Have students create an art project showing the positive influences that have impacted their life.

     

    SEL Direct Instruction Resources for Self-Awareness

    Curriculum Resources

    7th-8th Grades

    Utah Core Health Standards

     

     

    Strand 1: Health Foundations and Protective Factors of Healthy Self
    • Links                                                         
    • Lesson Plans
    • Standard HI.HF.1
    • Lesson Plans
    • Standard HI.HF.2

     

    Strand 2: Mental and Emotional Health

     

    Strand 3: Safety and Disease Prevention
    • Links
    • Standard HI.SDP.1
    • Standard HI.SDP.2

     

     

     

     

    Strand 4: Substance Abuse Prevention

     

     

    MindUp

     

     

     

     

     

    Unit 1: Getting Focused

     
    • L1 How Our Brain Works
    • L2: Mindful Awareness
    • L3: Focused Awareness: The Core Practice

    Unit 2: Sharpening Your Senses
    • L4: Mindful Listening
    • L5 Mindful Seeing
    • L6: Mindful Smelling
    • L7: Mindful Tasting
    • L8: Mindful Movement 1
    • L9: Mindful Movement 2

    Unit 3: It’s All About Attitude

     
    • L10: Perspective Taking
    • L11: Choosing Optimism
    • L12: Appreciating Happy Experiences

    Unit 4: Taking Action Mindfully
    • L13: Expressing Gratitude
    • L14: Performing Acts of Kindness
    • L15: Taking Mindful Action in the World

     

    Botvin Life

    Skills

     

    Health

    Lessons

    7th Grade

     

     

     
    • Coping with Anger
    • Coping with Anxiety

     

     Nearpod

     

    SEL

    7th Grade

    8th Grade

    Pure Edge, Inc.

     

     

     

     

    Pure Edge Brain Breaks

    Training Manual

    Pure Edge Brain Breaks Training Manual

    Strategies for educators and learners to support social, emotional, and academic development through mindful movement and rest.

    ● Arrival: Engaging in a Mindful Minute offers learners a chance to check in with themselves at the start of the day.

    ● Large Group/Circle Time: Simple breathing exercises will visually hold attention in the large group setting.

    ● Small Group: Small group offers time to give feedback and answer questions.

    ● Refocus Between Lessons: Bring in a little movement and breathing as a brain break to re-energize learners.

    ● Before Testing: Use mindful breathing exercises to help learners focus and relieve testing-related stress.

    ● Lining Up: Help learners stay calm during the transition to and from the classroom.

    ● Recess: Refocus and calm down after recess.

    ● Create a Calming Center: Have a Breathing Ball available for learners to access in a quiet area.

    ● Departure: A gratitude activity is a great way to start off or wrap up the day.

     

    Learning to Breathe
    • B-Body: Listen, your body is trying to tell you something.
    • R- Reflections and Thoughts: Thoughts are just thoughts.
    • E- Emotions: Surf the Waves of your emotions.
    • A- Attention: Attention to body, thoughts, and feelings is good stress reduction.
    • T- Tenderness: Take it as it is. Learn to be kind to yourself.
    • H- Healthy Habits of Mind: Finding ways to practice mindfulness in your life reduces stress and increases inner strength.
    • E- Empowerment: Gain the inner edge.