Kindness Hot Cocoa: Kind or Unkind Sort SEL Curriculum

Inside: Use this kindness hot cocoa hands-on activity to help students decide what is kind and what is not kind in this sel curriculum sort for winter.

Winter to me has always involved lots and lots of hot cocoa.

My kids know that on cold, blustery mornings, they’re usually getting hot cocoa with big marshmallows, little marshmallows, or a small candy cane as a spoon.

I’m a sucker for saying yes to hot cocoa often because it’s such a nostalgic part of my own childhood and because it’s absolutely delicious.

It’s the perfect drink for December to February…for kids and for grown ups.

And whenever we can connect something delicious like hot cocoa with learning, it makes everything a little more fun and a little more hands-on for our kids.

So we’re connecting hot cocoa to social emotional learning and character education by helping kids decide what is kind and what is not with our Kindness Hot Cocoa Kind or Unkind Sort.

Great Ways to Teach SEL in the Winter:

The beauty of teaching social emotional learning and character education is that it can be taught anywhere, to any grade, for any amount of time. And it connects to any holiday, season, or “traditional” curriculum like reading and writing.

So while you can teach it at any time of the year, winter is a great time to dig in since kids have settled into the school routine but are dealing with tricky social situations.

To connect social-emotional learning to winter we use things like our Kindness Elves and our Snow Kindness Activities and our Kindness Resolutions.

We also use this Winter Kindness Challenge where we do a winter-themed act of kindness every week, all throughout winter.

We also love to use our winter-themed kind or unkind sorts like our Kindness Mittens, our Kindness Snowmen, and this Kindness Hot Cocoa Activity.

How to Use the Kindness Hot Cocoa Activity:

1. Purchase and print the cards and the Kind or Not Kind Fires on cardstock paper.

2. If you print them in black and white, you can color in the cards first. Make sure to use skin color crayons like these to ensure the students on the hot cocoa cards are diverse.

3. Cut apart the cards

4. Go over the pictures on the cards to ensure children understand what the picture depicts. You can use these as discussion starters before or after the activity.

5. The students will sort the cards by kind actions or unkind actions by placing the cards near the correct fire.

They can do this during independent centers, small groups, or as a whole group in a pocket chart.

6. To follow up on the activity, students can complete the worksheet to show their understanding.

7. To connect this sel activity to writing standards, students can draw a picture and write how they will choose to be kind this season. Pre-writers can dictate their sentences.