Digital Social-Emotional Learning The Easy Way

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Need strategies and tools for teaching SEL online or in the classroom? Learn how to effectively use digital social-emotional learning activities to strengthen in-person and homeschool lessons with kids.

teaching social emotional skills digitally

Every child needs opportunities to excel academically, socially, and emotionally. As educators, it’s our responsibility to create space for students to develop essential life skills like empathy, self-regulation, and problem-solving skills they’ll use far beyond the classroom.

Digital activities aren’t just for remote learning anymore. Whether you’re leading a whole group lesson, working with small groups, or assigning independent practice, digital tools make it easy to integrate social-emotional learning (SEL) into your routine in a meaningful, engaging way.

Your Guide to Teaching Social-Emotional Skills Digitally
Why Use Digital Activities to Teach SEL?
How to Incorporate Digital SEL into Whole Group Lessons
Using Digital SEL in Small Groups and Independent Practice
Digital Social-Emotional Learning Lessons and Activities for K-5
More SEL Activities

Why Use Digital Activities to Teach SEL?

Today’s classrooms are increasingly tech-integrated. Many schools use one-to-one devices or incorporate technology in centers and small group rotations. These shifts allow us to use digital SEL activities in more flexible, accessible ways, during morning meetings, as station work, for early finishers, or even as part of a calm-down routine.

When students engage with SEL digitally, they develop social-emotional skills, independence, responsibility, and digital fluency. These formats allow students to reflect, process, and share safely and empoweringly.

How to Incorporate Digital SEL into Whole Group Lessons

Digital SEL activities can easily become part of your daily or weekly classroom routine. Here are some simple ways to build them into your whole group instruction:

How to Include Digital Social-Emotional Learning Activities into Lessons

Morning Meetings with a Digital Twist – Start the day with a digital slide deck or interactive journal prompt. Include a greeting, a check-in question, and a quick mindfulness or community-building activity. Project it on the board and lead the class into a meaningful conversation.

Interactive SEL Mini-Lessons – Introduce an SEL topic such as empathy, respect, or emotional regulation. Use a digital anchor chart or whiteboard to brainstorm ideas with students. Connect it to academics by having students respond to a writing prompt or create a short reflection in a digital journal.

Read-Alouds + Response Activities – Choose a read-aloud that highlights a social-emotional theme. After reading, guide a discussion about the characters’ actions and emotions, then assign a related digital activity, such as a character feelings chart, a writing response, or a scenario sort.

Using Digital SEL in Small Groups and Independent Practice

With the changing educational landscape, we are learning to use technology in new ways. When we teach using technology, we prepare our students for the future. By learning lessons to the whole class and assigning digital activities afterward, we sharpen their skills and give them practice in beneficial ways.

How does this help us teach social and emotional skills? By assigning digital SEL activities to our students, we can encourage independence in their use of technology. This empowers them to build self-management skills.

teacher teaching a small group on a tablet

Partner Activities on Devices – Pair students to complete an SEL digital task together. Whether they’re sorting calming strategies, solving peer conflict scenarios, or responding to discussion prompts, collaboration helps strengthen their communication and cooperation skills.

Digital SEL Stations – Set up a center focused on a digital SEL activity—perfect for a tablet or Chromebook station. Students can watch short videos, reflect in digital journals, complete interactive games, or respond to social scenarios through drag-and-drop or typing activities.

One-to-One Classrooms – In classrooms where each student has their own device, assign individual digital SEL tasks as a follow-up to your mini-lesson. These might include emotion check-ins, kindness challenges, or goal-setting exercises they complete independently.

I have the answer if you are wondering what digital SEL lessons and activities to teach your class!

The DIGITAL mind + heart Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum for K-2 and 3-5 includes eight units with 5+ detailed lessons filled with digital, interactive activities that encourage children to express themselves and build critical social-emotional skills.

Reasons to Choose This Digital SEL Curriculum!

No more wondering what and how to teach essential social and emotional skills. This mind+heart digital SEL curriculum includes detailed lessons that can be taught with follow-up activities for students to complete. Just select the topic and lesson and start teaching.

This curriculum takes the guesswork out of teaching social and emotional concepts. It has it all, and it is 100% digitally formatted for use in homeschooling or in-class resources.

This SEL curriculum includes a year’s worth of meaningful and engaging lessons and follow-up activities on the most critical life lessons, with units and activities on self-awareness, self-management, growth mindset, empathy, social awareness, friendship, kindness, respect, and responsibility.
The program provides teachers, counselors, and parents with lesson plans, instructions, videos, and activities in digital format to support social-emotional learning.

Some of the engaging & interactive SEL activities kids will enjoy!

Thought-starter questions, scenarios, & challenges
Digital anchor charts
Posters
Board & card games
Scenario cards for role-play
Projects
Sorting activities
Reflection Journals
Daily & Weekly Check-In charts
Idea cards
Interactive activities
Tons of Videos (safe links)
Mentor texts & response activities
& so much more!

Kids can complete assignments digitally after a classroom, small group, or one-on-one lesson
Beneficial for one-to-one classrooms
It can further a child’s independent practice of social-emotional skills in the classroom, in a homeschool setting, or in counseling sessions.

Comes with READY-FOR-YOU Google Slides, Seesaw, & Interactive PowerPoint Lessons.

It comes with instructions for using Google Classroom with Google Slides. You will receive a file with links to create copies of the Google Slides for your Google Classroom.
You will also receive interactive PowerPoint files that you can add to your preferred online platform and use as you see fit.
Pre-formatted Seesaw activities are ready to use in the K-2 curriculum.
Assign the activities using your online classroom account. Chromebooks, computers, iPads, tablets, phones, or interactive whiteboards can be used.

Learn to use different digital methods and devices
Gain practice and skills working and interacting online
Provides 1:1 classrooms with meaningful digital activities
Supports school counselors and provides materials for sessions
Provides families with additional tools to support their kids at home
Works well in a homeschool setting
Supports remote and distance learning

Frequently Asked Questions about our Digital SEL resources:

How easy are these lessons to teach? Do they require a lot of prep?

This program was made with the busy teacher in mind. The lessons and activities are done for you. Teach the lesson using the detailed lesson plan and instructions, then follow up with engaging activities ready to use in Google, PowerPoint, or Seesaw (for K-2).

I struggle to find time to teach SEL regularly. Can you give me some ideas on how to be more consistent?

This digital SEL curriculum fits easily into any busy teacher’s schedule with its short, actionable lessons that require only 15-20 minutes to teach. The activities are quick to complete yet incredibly effective and powerful in building social and emotional skills.

I like to use a combination of digital and printable activities. Can I print and use these digital activities hands-on?

While you can quickly adapt these digital activities in various online formats, they are not recommended for printable use. We have the same curriculum available in printable format and a combination bundle for those wanting printable and digital materials.

What educators are saying about the digital SEL resources:

Wow, this is exactly what I needed for my students! We are doing distance learning and have Mondays specifically dedicated to only social emotional learning. This is age appropriate for my first graders and I love how easily accessible and user friendly it is. ~ Danielle U.

I used this resource on my online learning platform. Parents and students loved these activities! It was especially helpful for parents who knew their children needed some additional social emotional learning, but were unsure how to approach it. I incorporated it into my literacy activities as there was usually a paired reading, writing, or listening activity. ~ Kelsey S.

My sons love doing these activities on the iPad and I love not having to print and prepare activities to only use them one time. This has been a great homeschool resource! Thanks for this digital version. The content, ideas, and organization of the units makes this very easy to use and it covers skills that my children need. ~ Tonya W.

Social-emotional learning isn’t a separate subject, it’s part of everything we do. By using digital tools to integrate SEL across your day, you make space for students to build essential life skills in a format they love and understand.

Whether you’re gathered together for a morning meeting or working independently during centers, digital SEL lessons and activities help you connect with your students and support their growth—in every way that matters.

FREE Digital Responsibility Lesson

Give one of our engaging digital SEL activities a try! Get a FREE lesson on responsibility that includes digital slides and activities to help you build your students’ personal responsibility. This lesson includes digital activity slides formatted for Google Slides that you can use for your personal responsibility lessons.

Click the image below to grab a copy.