Second Step® Elementary Digital Program
Caring, Connected, and Classroom-Ready
Empowered with Skills for Life
The Second Step® Elementary digital program is a universal, Tier 1 social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum that’s web-based, provides the structure to allow for consistent delivery, and easily scales across schools and districts. Its digital format enables continuous improvement based on up-to-date research and feedback, and a variety of media, activities, and interactive components provide opportunities for culturally relevant teaching. The program evolves along with your students during their elementary years to set them up for success later on in school and throughout their lives.
Engage Every Learner
The Second Step Elementary digital program equips educators to respond to students’ needs:
- In educator-facilitated group settings, students connect with the content, each other, and their teacher as they build new social-emotional skills
- Lessons include space for teachers to include real-life scenarios that keep the program content relevant for their students
- The look and feel of each grade’s lessons evolve as students grow into new developmental stages
- Performance tasks help teachers understand how the class is progressing and identify where students might benefit from more instruction or reinforcement
- More than 100 supplemental resources—including songs, Mind Yeti® mindfulness sessions, and enrichment activities—give educators a variety of options to expand learning
Easy to Teach and Track
- The program is intuitively designed with built-in training and supports for educators
- Easy online access to all content simplifies preparation, teaching, and progress tracking
- Implementation is streamlined and straightforward with getting-started resources, schoolwide access, and reporting that provides ongoing visibility into class progress
What’s Included in the Program?
The Second Step® Elementary digital program includes four full units of weekly, age-appropriate lessons for each grade. Lesson plans include scripting and support for teachers to guide student conversations, as well as downloadable handouts to promote student engagement.
The interactive, teacher-led units include five 15- to 30-minute lessons. The last lesson of each unit is a performance task in which students demonstrate evidence of their learning.
Unit
1
Growth Mindset & Goal-Setting
5 lessons per unit
Students learn how to develop a growth mindset and apply research-based goal-setting strategies to their social and academic lives. This unit’s content helps create classrooms that are connected and encouraging by helping students set and achieve collective and personal goals and learn from challenges and mistakes.
Unit
2
Emotion Management
5 lessons per unit
Students learn how to build their emotion vocabularies, practice identifying their own and others’ emotions, and recognize the importance of labeling and processing their emotions. This unit’s content helps students understand and explore how past experiences as well as unique perspectives influence how they feel and respond to situations.
Unit
3
Empathy & Kindness
5 lessons per unit
Students learn how to recognize kindness and act kindly toward others, and how to develop empathy by learning strategies to take others’ perspectives. This unit’s content helps students understand others’ points of view.
Unit
4
Problem-Solving
5 lessons per unit
Students learn how to process strong emotions, describe a problem, identify the wants and needs of others, think of and explore the outcomes of potential solutions, and pick the best solution. This unit’s content helps students ask, listen, and empathize with all parties involved during problem-solving.
We are committed to ensuring our programs are culturally relevant, affirming, and accessible to all children, especially the most systemically marginalized children. Learn more.
Resources
Scope and Sequence
Research
Alignment Charts
Find out more about Spanish-language materials.
Reinforcement and Supplemental Resources
- Thirty-two optional Mind Yeti® mindfulness sessions and four introductory videos invite kids to calm their minds, focus their attention, and connect to the world around them so they can be ready to learn.
- Five songs help students remember concepts from each unit. Listen, sing, or play along.
- Eighteen extension activities are designed to engage students through art, games, and movement.
- Four downloadable posters, two mini and two full-size, are included as part of the Second Step® Elementary digital program. Full-size printed posters and skills-reinforcement lanyards are also available for purchase in our store.
Sample a Lesson
Check out some of the Second Step® Elementary digital program lessons. You can preview teacher instructions and scripting in the lesson plans, see lesson content and media in the lesson presentations, and preview student resources in the lesson handouts (available for select lessons).
The Way to Say a Problem
Grade 2, Lesson 16
Lesson Plan (PDF)
Lesson Presentation
Lesson Handout (PDF)
Saying It Respectfully
Grade 4, Lesson 17
Lesson Plan (PDF)
Lesson Presentation
Lesson Handout A (PDF)
Lesson Handout B (PDF)
Ready to Purchase?
You can purchase a single-school K–8 license in our online store. If you are purchasing for a district, learn about multisite savings or contact us for a detailed quote.
Looking for Second Step® Elementary classroom kits? Click here.
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