All Practices
To find what you need quickly, sort the practices by age level and duration.
Build positive relationships with students in 2 minutes a day.
Develop students’ intellectual humility through concept mapping
Foster a sense of belonging through peer interviews and by integrating the collected data into math instruction.
Students learn how to comfort themselves during stressful times.
Foster well-being and inspiration through nature
Expand students’ thinking through awe
Foster positive relationships by speaking kindly about someone “behind their back.”
Students imagine their lives at 40. (Purpose Challenge Practice #5)
Students redirect their attention to their breath each time their minds wander.
A cooperative learning technique that engages all students’ participation through movement, discussion, and communication of ideas.
Students will identify the stereotypes they hold and consider the impact those stereotypes have on the fair treatment of athletes.
Use the Circle process to encourage students to safely and respectfully share their level of understanding on an academic topic.
Use the Circle process to build a sense of connection among students and staff by sharing moods, feelings, and moments of joy and pain.
Students develop courage by evaluating an idea or proposition and taking a stance on it.
Students will identify their personal biases and consider how those biases influence their ability to treat others fairly.
Students read a text slowly and reflect on its personal meaning for them.
Students explore their thoughts, emotions, or ideas by freewriting on a topic of their choosing, an academic-related question, or an ethical dilemma.
Students design a tattoo that symbolizes the things that matter most to them. (Purpose Challenge Practice #6)
Students grow their self-understanding through a contemplative art process that uses their own “scrapbook” of meaningful images.
Help students (or staff) understand that mistakes are important for learning and growing our intelligence.
Students provide input on changes that could be made to the classroom to subtly cue kind behavior.
Reduce student anxiety by changing students’ beliefs about social challenges.
Teachers and students converse with each other through writing.
Students identify their strengths to increase self-understanding. (Gratitude for Tweens and Teens Lesson 1)
Students reach out to trusted adults to ask what they think are students’ strengths and talents. (Purpose Challenge Practice #1)
A short but powerful number sense activity that shows students the visual nature of math, creativity in math, and that there are many different ways people see math.
Students reflect on what it means to "bear witness" to something.
Students reflect on how the Earthrise photograph offered humans a new way to see the Earth: without borders or boundaries.
Students reflect on how the Earthrise photograph instills a sense of awe and wonder towards our planet.
Students reflect on how the Earthrise photograph instills a sense of reverence and awe, encouraging us to be stewards of the Earth.
Broaden students’ thinking about a topic or skill, sparking curiosity, creativity, humility, and open-mindedness
Teachers will foster students’ moral identity through selective use of language in the classroom.
Students engage in prosocial (kind, helpful) actions for ten days and reflect on the impact of their actions on themselves and others.
Inspire students to practice intellectual humility by introducing them to what intellectual humility is, what it looks like, and why it is valuable.
Students explore and reflect on their values. (Purpose Challenge Practice #4)
Students use writing as a tool to explore their emotions and challenges
Teachers and students create a safe space to develop strong relationships.
Students think about a time when they felt close to someone in order to foster a sense of belonging and well-being.
Engage, motivate, and calm students by cultivating awe through sensory experiences.
Students discover what is meaningful to them and how it connects to their learning.
Students “finish” math problems by making connections between solutions to problems and everyday life.
In this circle activity, students practice mindful speaking and mindful listening.
A list of discussion questions to help cultivate students’ empathy.
An opening math activity that provides students the opportunity to appreciate different ways of achieving the same answer.
An interactive learning strategy that helps students clarify their own ideas and hear other perspectives—while getting them out of their seats.
Students think about the factors that encourage and discourage people to act when they confront suffering or injustice.
Students practice their social skills with each other while learning a new dance move
Spend quality time with people you care about.
A simple way to build students’ academic mindset, trust, and positive identity.
Students cultivate moral reasoning skills and humility through a peer-feedback process focused on P.E. skills.
A norm-setting activity to help create an environment for productive, positive, and equitable group work in math class
Students cultivate greater humility by practicing good listening skills.
Students write five things they’re grateful for once a day for two weeks.
Students write a letter of thanks and deliver it in person.
Learn to comfort yourself in the ways you would comfort good friends.
Acknowledge the faces of everyone in your classroom or meeting to deepen a sense of group connection.
Broaden students’ thinking and connection to something larger than themselves.
Students reflect on examples of the goodness of humanity.
Students hear and share inspiring stories compassionate risk-takers and then develop their own service project.
Foster our shared humanity by reflecting on the human life cycle.
Students listen to a song or piece of music and observe their responses.
Foster students’ sense of interconnectedness through awe
Students mentally send good wishes to someone who is important to them.
Students describe their ideal world and how they might contribute to creating that world. (Purpose Challenge Practice #2)
Simple ways for teachers, principals, and staff members to help families of all backgrounds feel welcome in the school community
Students reflect on how their science learning is relevant to their lives.
Students reflect on a Viktor Frankl quote about why meaning in life is important. (Purpose Challenge Practice #3)
Students use photography or drawing to explore purpose and meaning in their lives.
Students learn to notice body sensations and release sources of physical tension.
A daily mindfulness and music appreciation practice for the whole school or a single classroom
A daily mindfulness and poetry appreciation practice for the whole school or a single classroom
A short practice for mindfully exploring your emotional experience when you help a student
Boost students’ growth mindset in math through a short video and discussion.
Students learn how their thoughts can affect them.
Students collaborate on the development of classroom norms.
A brief learning activity that demonstrates the many different ways people see math and builds students’ flexibility with numbers.
Help students plan enjoyable activities as a form of self-care
Review and expand your classroom or school library with books that represent diverse backgrounds.
A process for helping students generate purposeful projects or endeavors
Students choose a quote about purpose and reflect on why it resonates with them. (Purpose Challenge Practice #7)
Create class community by brainstorming ways to stop put-downs.
Build trust and understanding among students by exploring questions of wonder.
Students practice kindness to increase their happiness
Lead a brief choral reading practice that fosters community and connection.
Help students calm themselves through a short coloring exercise.
Students cultivate practical wisdom by working through a moral dilemma and deciding on a course of action.
Foster students’ moral identity through story writing.
Students share their opinions and disagreements in healthy ways.
Students explore how our beliefs about differences influence the ways in which we see and choose to interact with each other.
Students briefly check-in with themselves and focus their attention on their breath.
Students practice appreciating the body’s processes in a deeply mindful way.
Students recognize the costs and benefits involved in a kind act. (Gratitude for Tweens and Teens Lesson 2)
Students look for the good in others by acknowledging each other’s strengths. (Gratitude for Tweens and Teens Lesson 3)
Students and staff lessen their stress by changing their outlook on a negative event.
Foster well-being and connection by contemplating the magnitude of the universe.
Use the Circle process to encourage self-care among staff and students in all dimensions.
Students write about making long-term goals a reality. (Purpose Challenge Practice #8)
Students observe their breath while relaxing and tensing their bodies, and then practice shaking and freezing their bodies.
Students explore real-world examples to help them identify peaceful ways to respond to discrimination.
A list of strategies for making explicit connections to SEL skills throughout the day in order to reinforce students’ practice of skills
Ways to use SEL for cultivating youth agency and civic engagement
A values-informed process to help students make the best possible ethical choices
Students spend a day or two doing a variety of meaningful activities.
Strategies for parents and caregivers that teach their children how to practice to help them achieve their goals
Strategies for parents and caregivers to help teens understand and practice being humble
Create a warm, non-judgmental space for teens to talk about challenges.
A practice for parents and caregivers to help their child or teen plan enjoyable activities as a form of self-care
Students forge intergenerational relationships while strengthening their digital citizenship and troubleshooting skills.
Students learn how to think gratefully. (Gratitude for Tweens and Teens Lesson 4)
A tool for fostering a supportive and equitable classroom and school environment and for promoting SEL.
Students define and practice “good sense,” or the will and know-how to do the right thing.
Students use dance to learn about the world and celebrate diversity.
Students record three good things that happened to them each day for a week.
Students cultivate courage, empathy, and compassion by sharing and listening to others comment on how others see them versus who they really are.
Students cultivate courage by making a commitment to engage in a courageous act.
Develop students’ intellectual humility by helping them to ask questions while thoughtfully evaluating evidence.
Students explore how groups, communities, and nations define who belongs and who does not, and how these decisions are made.
Students explore and write about what makes a good life.
Students learn how our different backgrounds give us different perspectives.
Through stories, discussion, and creative presentations about true heroes, students foster their compassion for others and see brave community involvement as an admirable, heroic way of life.
Students explore, reflect, and write about being an upstander rather than a bystander.
Students respectfully discuss their stance on a current event.
Students learn to observe and accept emotions and body sensations.
