TNP at Your Dinner Table: 3rd Edition

It has become increasingly more essential to embed and embrace social and emotional learning (SEL) in both school and out-of-school environments. By integrating SEL instruction, practice, and discussion into our children’s daily lives, we can help our children better navigate the difficult circumstances they’ll face throughout their lives and can help to give them the tools to succeed in the throes of a global pandemic. The Nora Project knows that particularly during this time where families are spending more time together than ever before, that providing opportunities for learning and conversation around SEL topics at home is critical. As such, we have developed a four part series called The Nora Project Table Topics Game, to bring The Nora Project to your dinner table (or den or car), making family time more meaningful for everyone. 

For the past two months, The Nora Project has provided a new set of Table Topics that are aligned with the values incorporated in our classroom programs. Our first set of cards provided questions to help children build a foundation for understanding simple and complex emotions in themselves and to begin to develop emotional literacy. Our second set of cards was developed to help children to apply this knowledge of emotions to those around them and build their empathy muscles.

This month, our third set of Table Topics cards are designed to help children take what they have learned about empathy and put it into the context of real relationships. The questions in this set offer children the opportunity to examine their own friendships and relationships and begin to uncover what makes them feel supported, uplifted, and like they belong. Through these questions, it is important to help kids develop an understanding of the concepts that real friends are not simply friendly or nice, but rather are people who you can count on in times when you are sad or feeling down. As students build their understanding of empathy, they can also begin to understand the inextricable connection between empathy and inclusion.  Children, through their understanding of empathy, can begin to understand what it would feel like to be excluded. This helps to illuminate for them the importance of inclusive practices and why they should make an effort to include people of all abilities.