Keep The Learning Going: Extention Activities For Second Step Lessons | By: Committee for Children A colleague of mine, Liz, is a school psychologist who implemented the Second Step middle school curriculum in several middle school classrooms this past year. She knew that she had many potential challenges such as large class sizes, split grades, student mobility, and high special-needs populations, so she also provided additional classroom supports to further reinforce the skills taught in the lessons. Many of her activities worked well, so I thought they would be worth sharing. Whether you work with elementary or secondary students, and whether you’re a guidance counselor, school psychologist, social worker, or classroom teacher, these ideas could be used by anyone who is implementing the curriculum. Liz worked with most classrooms twice a week, from October to May. She implemented a lesson every other week, and led extension activities related to the lessons during the weeks in between. Although she primarily delivered the lessons, the classroom teachers were also present so they knew what skills needed to be modeled and reinforced daily in the classroom. The extension ideas usually involved some type of movement, to keep students engaged. Most were experiential education activities that could be found in books such as No Props: Great Games with No Equipment (Mark Collard), Journey Toward the Caring Classroom (Laurie Frank), Creating Healthy Habits: A Creative Guide to Teaching Health and Wellness (Katie Kitty), and The Hundredth Monkey: Activities That Inspire Playful Learning (Project Adventure). For the first few weeks, support activities focused on cohesiveness, relationship building and being part of a group. The purpose was to help students learn more about their classmates and feel more comfortable communicating with one another. Here are a few examples: Get to Know You Contract: Students complete a list of fill-in-the-blank questions such as “My favorite thing to do is___” and “I like ____”. People Bingo: Students complete a bingo sheet that involves finding others to sign their squares. Students are asked to find someone who plays an instrument, likes to play basketball, has at least four siblings, loves to read, and so forth. Click here for a free bingo card generator Thumball: Students pass the thumball within a circle. The person who catches it has to answer a question that appears on the ball. They must choose the question that is closest to their thumb. The remaining extension activities were specific to the lesson skills, and focused on topics such as perspective-taking and problem-solving. The examples below were favorites among the students. Emotion Management and Impulse Control Ducky Wucky: Students try to get others to laugh or smile by asking them “Will you be my ducky wucky?” They came up with management strategies such as looking away, deep breathing, and thinking of something else, to avoid smiling or laughing. Being Assertive Line up: Create various scenarios that represent the three communication styles taught in Second Step: passive, aggressive, and assertive. Have students stand in a single-file line facing you. For each scenario read, ask students to move along the continuum according to which communication style is used. What else do you do to reinforce the skills taught in Second Step middle school lessons?