Social Emotional Learning for Elementary Students

As children grow and develop, they acquire many skills to help them become caring and respectful individuals. Whether these skills are naturally acquired through modeling and practice or through a more direct instruction approach, it is important for students to learn how to resolve conflicts, communicate effectively with others, and use strategies to build, maintain, and repair relationships.

One skill that students will develop from an early age is the ability to forgive others when a friend makes a mistake. Rather than holding grudges and damaging a relationship, there are steps your students can take to repair a friendship. Teach Starter has created a printable poster and writing prompt for your young students to use when exploring this topic. Our “Five Finger Forgiveness” poster includes the following tips:

• Breathe when you try to calm down
• Listen when they say sorry
• Accept an honest apology
• Apologize if you need to
• Show love with a hug or high five

This download also includes a writing prompt (both with primary and intermediate writing lines) for students to complete.

The purpose of this resource is to break down forgiveness for young students and teach them how to forgive.

Tips for Differentiation + Scaffolding 

A team of dedicated, experienced educators created this resource to support your social-emotional lessons. 

If you have a mixture of above and below-level learners, check out these suggestions for keeping students on track with the concepts: 

🆘 Support Struggling Students

For students who need additional support, allow them to work on the writing worksheet with the sentence starter. Additionally, allow the student to work with a peer to help them write their verbal response to the prompt.

Easily Prepare This Resource for Your Students

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the PDF or editable Google Slides version of this resource.

Print the poster on cardstock for added durability and longevity.

This resource was created by Lisamarie Del Valle, a teacher in Florida and a Teach Starter Collaborator. 

Don’t stop there! We’ve got more activities and resources that cut down on lesson planning time:  

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