Social-Emotional Learning & Wellness

Students in the Lower School Kehillot participate in weekly life-skills lessons that focus on the cultivation of positive well-being. During these lessons, students are taught how to navigate social skills through finding the balance of being proactive, assertive, and prosocial. We deliberately teach skills as how to enhance their own personal well-being.  Students engage in conversation and hands-on activities that promote mental health such as meditation, mindfulness, role-playing, and communication skills.

The Middle School Advisory program meets four times per week with one or two advisors, in a smaller classroom composition. Each advisory session has a specific goal where organizational skills, community-building, and meditative practices are incorporated. Our curriculum is based on the Responsive Classroom Advisory program where targeted skill development is highlighted each session. Advisory is also a time for Kehillah (community) building where students may participate in a Hesed activity, celebrate communal holidays, and play games.

School-wide programming that further cultivates our school’s Five Key Character Strengths (Curiosity, Empathy, Gratitude, Kindness, and Perseverance) is scheduled throughout the year  - with a day dedicated to each attribute, allowing students to explore and digest its importance. On Yom Gratitude, students share Divrei Torah on the Jewish connection between prayer and gratitude, participate in events that , and make gratitude collages highlighting where they experience gratitude. On Yom Kindness, students reflect on the impact to themselves and to others, of being kind. These days also provide a moment to extend beyond our own Kehillah, engaging in a variety of Hesed activities, challenging ourselves to demonstrate kindness and compassion within our local community as well.

Responsive Classroom is a framework for building a caring, safe, and cohesive community in which children grow and mature, emotionally, intellectually, and socially. Responsive Classroom believes that in order for students to deeply engage in their learning, they must feel safe and supported. From an academic standpoint, Responsive Classroom helps us to create opportunities for academic choice and differentiation while also teaching children crucial skills such as how to take turns, listen respectfully to each other, and work effectively with a partner or in a collaborative group. Responsive Classroom allows each child to feel “seen.”