Boosting Preschool Social-Emotional Learning

Challenge

For Galloway Township Schools (GTS) in New Jersey, the pandemic solidified the need for a comprehensive social-emotional learning curriculum. GTS was already using an SEL curriculum to support K-5 children, but Wendy Atkinson, master teacher in the GTS preschool program, knew that it wasn’t designed to meet the unique needs of preschool children. She needed a social-emotional curriculum that was:

Solution

Wendy found the answer in Al’s Pals, Teaching Strategies’ nationally recognized, evidence-based preschool social-emotional curriculum that takes a preventive, whole-child approach to learning, not a correctional one.

	Designed to meet the unique needs of preschoolers aged 3 to 5, Al’s Pals teaches young children how to make healthy decisions, resolve conflicts, manage their feelings, and build positive relationships.
	Prepopulated lesson guides, songs and puppet scripts made it simple for her preschool teachers to implement.
	As part of Teaching Strategies’ connected ecosystem of products, Al’s Pals integrates seamlessly with The Creative Curriculum, which GTS was already using.

“The fact that Al’s Pals was designed for preschool was absolutely crucial—it was a big shining point for the program. Combined with being easy for teachers and aligned to The Creative Curriculum, Al’s Pals was a no-brainer.” -Wendy Atkinson, preschool master teacher at GTS

Results

Building Positive Relationships Through Shared Experiences

Beginning in June 2021, GTS started implementing two Al’s Pals lessons per week in a small cohort of 40 preschool children who were enrolled in their extended day program. This initial rollout would help guide the later broader implementation in all preschool classrooms in the fall.

From the very first lesson, “You’re a Star,” Wendy reported that the teachers found success and the children were engaged. One activity in the lesson has children choose a favorite food and pair it with their name, e.g., Olivia Pizza. Wendy noticed a class was lining up at the playground and one child wasn’t joining the line: “I saw the other children begin calling her name and favorite food to invite her to be with them. The child responded right away, and it was really unique to see the class use their shared experience and language to help their classmate remember the classroom norms. You could tell she felt special and not embarrassed or singled out.”

Adopting a Whole-Child Approach to Building Resiliency

“You’re a Star” encourages children to value who they are and what makes them special and creates the caring and nurturing environment that lays the foundation for promoting resiliency in young children. This preventative, whole-child approach of Al’s Pals was very appealing to Wendy and her teachers.

“Al’s Pals covers good and bad choices, good and bad touches, and how children should handle themselves as a whole self. I also love the preventative approach—I didn’t want an SEL program that focused only on stopping unwanted behavior, but rather a total program that focused on providing children with foundational skills.”

Wendy Atkinson,
preschool master teacher at GTS

Easy to Implement and Aligned with The Creative Curriculum

With the stressors of educating during a pandemic, Wendy wasn’t willing to ask her teachers to learn and adapt a complicated new program. Wendy saw that Al’s Pals “effortlessly complemented The Creative Curriculum and would be so easy for our teachers to get started with.”

GTS teachers appreciated the ease of implementation. Resources like puppets, songs, family letters, and Al-a-Grams were already prepared and ready to use, and the teachers found Al’s Pals simple to include in their existing schedules alongside The Creative Curriculum. “It’s like they were always meant to go together. I don’t have to change anything to make Al’s Pals fit,” one teacher reported.

Teachers noticed right away how receptive the children were to the puppet and song resources, which were also versatile enough to allow for individual teacher creativity.

Family Resources Reinforce SEL Concepts at Home

Like many programs, keeping families engaged during the pandemic had been a huge challenge for GTS.  But the resources that Al’s Pals provides to reinforce SEL concepts at home have strengthened family connections and created an environment where teachers, families, and children are all speaking the same shared language around SEL.

These tools and strategies include letters to inform families of their children’s efforts in SEL at school, digital access to the songs that accompany each lesson, and Al-a-Grams (in English and Spanish) to support social-emotional learning at home.

When a mother sent Wendy a video of her child using the skills they had learned using Al’s Pals, Wendy knew the approach to family engagement and SEL was working.

Implementing Al’s Pals in All GTPS Preschool Classrooms This Fall

After the summer program’s successful experience with Al’s Pals, Wendy and the other teachers are excited about what this fall will bring when GTS implements Al’s Pals in all of their preschool classrooms. The pandemic made it clear to administrators, teachers, and families that one of the best things we can do for young children is to find a nurturing and positive way to help them build skills to prepare for life’s challenges.

With Al’s Pals, every preschool classroom can do just that.