PreK Educators: Enhancing Social-Emotional Skills with ‘Guess What Happens Next’
Introduction
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) plays a crucial role in early childhood education, helping young students build essential life skills. In this blog post, we will explore a fun and engaging activity called ‘Guess What Happens Next,’ designed to help PreK students better understand how their actions can affect others in various situations, particularly in a school setting. This activity encourages students to think critically about different scenarios and predict the consequences of their actions, promoting better decision-making and empathy.
No-Prep Activity: ‘Guess What Happens Next’
This activity requires no preparation or materials from the educator. You can use the following steps to conduct the activity in your classroom:
- Divide your students into small groups or pairs.
- Present a short video or describe a scenario involving a character facing a decision-making situation in school. For example, a student who doesn’t want to participate in a class activity after returning from vacation.
- Pause the video or stop the description and give the students three possible outcomes to choose from, predicting how the character will react and how their decision will affect others.
- Ask students to discuss and decide on the most likely outcome within their groups or pairs.
- Reveal the correct answer, then discuss why that outcome occurred and how the character’s actions impacted the rest of the class.
The activity can be repeated with various scenarios to help students practice predicting outcomes and understanding the consequences of their actions.
Discussion Questions
After completing the ‘Guess What Happens Next’ activity, use these discussion questions to further engage your students and deepen their understanding of social-emotional concepts:
- Why do you think the character made that decision? What factors might have influenced their choice?
- How did the character’s actions affect the rest of the class? Were the consequences positive or negative?
- What could the character have done differently to create a more positive outcome?
- Can you think of a time when you faced a similar situation? How did you handle it, and what was the result?
- How can we apply what we’ve learned from this activity to our own actions and decisions in school?
Related Skills
‘Guess What Happens Next’ helps students develop several important social-emotional skills, including:
- Empathy: Understanding and considering the feelings of others in various situations.
- Decision-making: Evaluating options and choosing the best course of action.
- Self-awareness: Recognizing one’s own emotions and how they affect behavior.
- Problem-solving: Identifying and resolving conflicts in a constructive manner.
Next Steps
Now that you’ve learned about the ‘Guess What Happens Next’ activity and its benefits for PreK students, we invite you to explore more social-emotional learning resources for your classroom. Sign up for free samples of our skill-building materials and discover a wealth of engaging and effective tools to support your students’ growth and development.
