Let’s Be Social – Stories for the Classroom

Many young children find it challenging to keep their hands and feet to themselves due to various developmental reasons. Children are naturally curious about the world around them. They use their hands and feet to explore and understand their environment. Touching, grabbing, and moving around are ways for them to learn about textures, shapes, and space. Additionally, they are still developing their impulse control and self-regulation skills. They might act on their impulses without considering the consequences or social norms, leading them to touch or fidget without realizing it.

While there are reasons why students may not keep their hands and feet to themselves, this is a behavior that we, as teachers, should teach students to avoid.

Teach Starter has created a printable mini-book to help your students learn about how to keep their hands and feet to themselves. Each page is designed in a simple manner with real-life photographs to help students make connections and understand the examples.

The last page of the mini-book also poses a question with three picture choices for students to choose from as their answer.

Social Story for Keeping Hands to Self

This social narrative story can be used in a variety of different ways with your students. It could be used as a:

• Whole-class lesson (via smartboard)
• Collaborative group activity
• Targeted teacher-student activity
• Take-home resource

How to Get Your Keeping Hands to Self Social Story

If you are ready to add this SEL reader to your teaching toolkit, head over to the green download button! Here, you will find the quick-print PDF file and the editable Google Slides document. If choosing the Google Slides option, please note that you will first be prompted to make a copy of the resource to your personal drive before accessing it.

After printing the pages, cut them in half and stack the pages. Staple the pages along the left-hand side of the booklet to secure.

Lindsey Phillips, a teacher in Michigan and a Teach Starter collaborator, contributed to this resource.

More Social Emotional Learning Resources for Your Classroom!

Make sure to check out some of our suggested resources for your SEL lessons!

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Empathy Social Stories Interactive Activity

Help your students determine empathetic behaviors with this interactive game designed for 1st and 2nd grade students.

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Social Stories - Personal Space

Learn about the importance of leaving personal space when interacting with others with this personal space social story.

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Social Stories - Activity Cards

Help your students build social skills and practice concepts learned within our social stories with a set of printable task cards.