Exploring social-emotional learning: A new virtual tutorial for caregivers & early learners

By Shelley Harris, Children’s Librarian

At the library, we often hear from parents, teachers, and other caregivers that social-emotional learning (SEL) is important to you. What exactly is SEL? Let’s take a brief look and then dig in below.

What is social-emotional learning?

Social-emotional learning is a learning approach that helps people understand their emotions, feel those emotions, manage those feelings, and express empathy for others.

How does the library support SEL?

We have always had a strong focus on SEL at the library—incorporating space for children to share during storytimes, creating a welcoming environment, and letting them take the lead in regards to what the shared time needs to be.

SEL video library

At the beginning of the pandemic and throughout it, the need for social and emotional learning became even more apparent than it already was. To help support caregivers and their little ones during this time, Jenny and I created a lot of videos for early learners focused on SEL topics.

You can find all of our SEL videos listed in one place on our video page, listed by most recent first. That’s a good place to start exploring SEL topics!

New! On-demand SEL virtual tutorial

If you want to dig a little deeper, we have a brand new resource: an on-demand virtual tutorial focused on social-emotional learning.

In this virtual course, we’ve broken SEL into its four quadrants: understanding emotions, feeling emotions, managing emotions, and expressing empathy. For each quadrant, we’ll share a brief introduction and a number of related videos.

Plus, we’ve added some extra resources, and we’ll continue to update this class with new videos and resources. So check back from time to time!

Available on-demand, you can explore the SEL virtual tutorial whenever you like. Just click the play button on this page to get started!

New videos coming soon

Starting in June, Virtual Learning & Fun videos will become Early Bird Learning videos! In addition to the same great content to share with kids, we’ll have videos just for caregivers—focusing on early literacy activities, social-emotional learning, and more.

Our friends at the Collaboration for Early Childhood are sharing what they’re hearing from caregivers, and if you have requests or suggestions for topics you’re interested in, email me at shelleyh@oppl.org.

In the meantime, check out these videos for caregivers!

Use songs, like Raffi’s Self Regulation song, and breathing exercises to help kids manage emotions:

Transitions are hard. Jenny has a great book to share, plus fun sounds to explore with friends:

Shelley Harris

About Shelley

Shelley is a children’s librarian with a passion for early literacy, serving and celebrating the disability community, and exploring technology. She can often be found practicing storytime songs with her black lab, Bingo.