Table of Contents

• Daily Check-in Tool

• Warm Welcome Kit

• Weather Our Storms Scale

• Meaningful Conversations Kit

• Friendzy Exit Tickets

DAILY CHECK-IN TOOL 

EMOTIONS WHEEL | HIGH SCHOOL

The Emotions Wheel is a tool to help students learn to identify the emotions that they are experiencing at any given moment. Once students can identify how they feel, they can respond to, resolve, and manage emotions.

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With increased emotional vocabulary comes more honesty, specificity, and creativity in the sharing of our emotions. This enables us to develop closer relationships and to be more vulnerable with one another, which, in turn, can allow us to be more supportive of one another. It also helps us to grow in our own self-awareness.

Background

The Feelings Wheel was developed by Dr. Gloria Willcox in 1982. In her work as a psychotherapist, she noticed that many of her clients lacked the emotional vocabulary to accurately express how they were feeling. Pulling inspiration from other great works, such as Joseph Zinker’s ideas of the therapist as an artist and ideas of Robert Plutchick, a professor of psychology from New York, of describing feelings by color, she sought to create a tool that would encourage increased emotional literacy for individuals.

Dr. Willcox’s Feelings Wheel begins with six basic emotions: mad, sad, scared, joyful, powerful, and peaceful. Radiating out from these six emotions are a variety of secondary and tertiary emotions. For example, let’s pretend I feel sad. I can begin by acknowledging I feel sad in the center of the wheel. From there, I can use the wheel to further understand the kind of sadness I am feeling (ie. lonely, or even further, inadequate). How I respond and manage feeling lonely might look different than if I was feeling ashamed or bashful, which also stems from the basic emotion of sadness. It’s important to recognize that we might even be feeling more than one emotion at once. That’s okay and normal! This tool can be very helpful in allowing us to dig deeper into the root of our feelings, which can allow us to respond, react, and manage our emotions in even better ways.

Implementation Tips

• Play the 30 Circles Challenge. Students will be tasked with independently identifying 30 different emotions in word or emoji form. Have a discussion about the emotions they came up with and pay attention to any trends you notice. 

• Unpack the Emotions Wheel. Ask students what they notice about the three rings of the wheel and how it is structured.

  • How do the colors represent emotions?

  • How do the rings build off one another?

  • How would using this wheel help you identify your emotions more specifically?

  • Which words do you tend to use most often? Could you get more accurate?

• Give students a voice. Use the following questions to gauge how students want to use the Daily Check-in Tool throughout the year.

  • In what ways would you like to check in with each other this year? How could the Emotions Wheel help in this process?

  • How can we be supportive classmates as our peers share? How can we create an environment where students feel welcome to share?

• Be consistent. Post the Emotions Wheel on a slide or in your classroom each day. Ask students to identify how they are feeling, using more than one word if necessary. Encourage students to use words in the middle or outer ring to get specific about how they feel.

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A warm welcome sets the tone for every student to feel seen, heard and known, creating a positive and safe learning environment.

This Warm Welcome Kit includes several brief classroom connection activities designed to help you start every day, or class section, with intentional relational connection. The goal of starting each day with a warm welcome is to cultivate and maintain a safe learning environment that proactively strengthens peer to peer relationships so that all students feel safe, seen, heard and ready to learn. 

Browse through this collection of Warm Welcomes and choose several that will work for your class. While doing so keep in mind the following: 

TIME | Activities range from 2-15 minutes. 

VULNERABILITY LEVEL | As your class gets to know each other, vulnerability will increase. At the beginning of the year (low vulnerability) consider allowing students to choose partners for sharing. As relationships are strengthened (high vulnerability), structure activities in a way that students are interacting with peers they may not know as well. 

ENERGY LEVELS | Choose a calming activity when students are high energy or a more active warm welcome when students are feeling sluggish. 

ROUTINE TO RITUAL | Choose (or create) one or two warm welcome activities that you engage in at least once weekly, (i.e. Monday Mindsets). Repetition creates an inclusive class ritual that further deepens peer to peer connection and belonging. 

Early Education

 IMPLEMENTATION TIPS

• Start Small: Choose one Warm Welcome activity that your students would enjoy. Observe how your students engage in the activity and adjust as needed.

• Schedule It: Commit to a time each day or week when you can incorporate a Warm Welcome. A scheduled time will help you be more consistent, allow students to know what to expect, and give them something to look forward to.

• Mix It Up: Use different Warm Welcome activities to keep students engaged. Try a calming activity when students need to slow down. Use an energizing activity in the afternoon slump. Take notice of which activities your students prefer.

• Class Favorites: Write down your students' favorite Warm Welcome activities on popsicle sticks, put them in a jar, and let one student pick the activity for the day.

KINDERGARTEN-8TH GRADE

IMPLEMENTATION TIPS

• Start Small: Choose one Warm Welcome activity that your students would enjoy. Observe how your students engage in the activity and adjust as needed.

• Schedule It: Commit to a time each day or week when you can incorporate a Warm Welcome. A scheduled time will help you be more consistent, allow students to know what to expect, and give them something to look forward to.

• Mix It Up: Use different Warm Welcome activities to keep students engaged. Try a calming activity when students need to slow down. Use an energizing activity in the afternoon slump. Take notice of which activities your students prefer.

• Class Favorites: Write down your students' favorite Warm Welcome activities on popsicle sticks, put them in a jar, and let one student pick the activity for the day.

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Friendzy's Weather Our Problems Scale is a solution-focused scaling strategy that invites students to rate how they are currently doing: how big is the problem or emotion? 

Weather provides a great opportunity to visualize this scale. Thunderstorms, for example, are loud, stressful, and can be scary. At the same time, while we may have to work through hardship after it passes, we know the storm will pass and the sun will come out after. Thinking of emotions or problems like weather provides a sense of hope for us! Because we know weather changes, this mindset can help students feel “un-stuck!”. It can be helpful for us to take time to pause, acknowledge our emotions, and name the size of our problem before we can identify coping strategies or solutions that can help improve our situation.  

EARLY EDUCATION

Supportive Questions 

• If you are between a 1-2:

  • Yay! Things are going great! What is helping you be here?

  • What can you do more of to stay here?

  • What does being at this number tell you what you need?

• If you are between a 3-5:

  • What would move you down a number or two? Is there a coping skill that would help?

  • When things are going better, what will you notice is different?

  • What does being at this number tell you that you need? 

Implementation Tips

• Plan the Rollout: We recommend introducing it to the whole class during a time when students are emotionally regulated. This will help them use it more effectively when they are dysregulated, or feeling strong emotions. 

• Introduce the Scale: Facilitate a conversation with students about weather. Ask them to imagine the most extreme weather and next, the most pleasant weather. Discuss the weather in between. Display the Weather Our Problems Scale and share that we cannot control the weather, but we can control our response (ie. we can grab an umbrella on those rainy days to feel more prepared)! When we experience thunderstorms or stormy moments, we can pause and think about what might help improve our situation. What might bring us back towards a sunny day? Maybe a coping strategy like taking a break, talking to a trusted adult, squeezing a fidget, using a deep breathing strategy, etc. Remembering that controlling our response can help us find a piece of control in tough moments. We can weather our problems!

• Make it Visible: Post the Weather Our Problems Scale in your classroom to make it visible for students. You can print out smaller versions to give to students for more personalized use. They can use paper clips to slide up and down throughout the day as they check in with themselves. Keep a Daily-Check In Tool nearby if students need help naming emotions. 

• Start a Routine: Encourage students to interact with the tool as they need it. Remind students to use the Daily Check-in Tool alongside the weather chart if they need access to emotion vocabulary.

KINDERGARTEN-8TH GRADE 

Supportive Questions 

• If you are between a 1-3:

  • Yay! Things are going great! What is helping you be here?

  • What can you do more of to stay here?

  • What does being at this number tell you what you need?

• If you are between a 4-7:

  • What would move you down a number or two? Is there a coping skill that would help?

  • When things are going better, what will you notice is different?

  • What does being at this number tell you that you need? 

Implementation Tips

• Plan the Rollout: We recommend introducing it to the whole class during a time when students are emotionally regulated. This will help them use it more effectively when they are dysregulated, or feeling strong emotions. 

• Introduce the Scale: Facilitate a conversation with students about weather. Ask them to imagine the most extreme weather and next, the most pleasant weather. Discuss the weather in between. Display the Weather Our Problems Scale and share that we cannot control the weather, but we can control our response (ie. we can grab an umbrella on those rainy days to feel more prepared)! When we experience tornadoes or stormy moments, we can pause and think about what might help improve our situation. What might bring us back towards a sunny day? Maybe a coping strategy like taking a break, talking to a trusted adult, squeezing a fidget, using a deep breathing strategy, etc. Remembering that controlling our response can help us find a piece of control in tough moments. We can weather our problems!

• Make it Visible: Post the Weather Our Problems Scale in your classroom to make it visible for students. You can print out smaller versions to give to students for more personalized use. They can use paper clips to slide up and down throughout the day as they check in with themselves. Keep a Daily-Check In Tool nearby if students need help naming emotions. 

• Start a Routine: Encourage students to interact with the tool as they need it. Remind students to use the Daily Check-in Tool alongside the weather chart if they need access to emotion vocabulary.

Specific Tips for Your Students

• As K-5 students begin to use this tool, check in with them afterwards. You can use these questions as a conversation guide for you. Feel free to remind them of coping skills if they are struggling to think of ones that might help. Deep breathing is always a great place to start!

• Middle School students might enjoy processing these questions internally. You can print out the tool instructions on the Friendzy Online Resource Portal to have available for students. You can also leave notecards nearby in case students want to write a message down to share with you. Always encourage them to come to you to check in as they need, but check in from time to time anyway! 

We may not be able to control all that comes our way in this life, but we can weather our problems!

Available in English & Spanish!

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Nonverbal hand signals with conversation stems are a game-changer in classrooms.
Instead of insisting that students speak up when they feel uncomfortable, nonverbal hand signals give teachers a way to empower students to comfortably lead rigorous conversation.

Nonverbal hand signals are gestures that allow students to participate in classroom conversation in a respectful, orderly, and engaged manner. This does two things: it allows teachers to gauge the thought process of each students while allowing them to reteach skills when they notice more than 50% of students are agreeing with the wrong answer.

Then, when conversation stems come along, they tie everything together. Conversation stems create space for open-ended discussions so students are able to keep their peers accountable, demonstrate active listening, and have meaningful conversations (sounds like a dream, I know).

Modeling, explicit teaching, and creating a space for students to practice is a must.

STEP ONE: Introduce the "agree" and "disagree" hand signals (these are the easiest to grasp). Put a fun question on the board like "I think cats are better than dogs" then have students agree or disagree with the statement using hand signals. Next have students share using sentence stems: "I disagree with Ms. Wei because my cat does not like to cuddle like a dog does and instead scratches me."

STEP TWO: After your students master the step above and no longer need prompts, continue the conversation with "add on". Practice the hand signal and the sentence stem. I would like to mention that when I first started this, my students were only choosing one sentence stem for each category. Challenge your students to try a variety of sentence stems once they are comfortable!

STEP THREE: When your class is comfortable with "agree." "disagree" and "add on" add the last three categories: clarify, prompt, and explain. I didn’t introduce these last categories until I was sure my students could carry the conversation. Take your time to introduce each category individually. Of course, use your teacher intuition and don't be afraid to go back to practicing if your students need it!

Start using hand signals and conversation stems in the classroom today with Friendzy’s Meaningful Conversations Kit. There are desk tags, bookmarks, and posters!

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Friendzy Exit tickets

The Friendzy Exit Ticket slides support teachers and students throughout the school year.

Character Education is vital for students of all ages. As a teacher, you have the unique opportunity to support students’ in developing social-emotional skills by engaging them in conversations that build emotional literacy. 

Friendzy Exit Tickets are easy to use in virtual and in-person classrooms. This formative assessment tool is designed to support students’ growth and help you, as a teacher, get to know your students and support their social-emotional awareness in a meaningful way.

HOW TO USE FRIENDZY SEL EXIT TICKETS

The Friendzy SEL Exit Tickets are designed to easily implement into your lesson plan at the end of each class. You can customize the questions and reflection statements to mirror what students learned that day. 

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