Montlake Elementary

Montlake
Elementary
Academics

Social Emotional Learning

Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

What is RULER?

R.U.L.E.R is a social/emotional curriculum approach created for students (and adults) to teach them how to Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate emotions.

It’s been met with success and lasting positive results for students and teachers who have implemented it in their schools.

RULER at School

Each year we create classroom charters that will be continually referenced and updated throughout the year. The 3 components of this charter are:

  1. How do we want to feel?
  2. What will we do to have these feelings consistently?
  3. What will we do to prevent and manage conflict? (What do we do when the charter isn’t followed?)

RULER at Home

Here are some tips to practice the skills your child learns at school in the home. Click the links to download PDF’s or watch videos.

Mood Meter

mood meter RULER tool builds vocabulary of emotion. The mood meter is one of RULER's four main tools to help students figure out what they are feeling in terms of their energy level (the Y axis) an pleasantness (the X axis)

enraged, surprised, ecstatic, anxious, elated, worried, cheerful, annoyed, joy, bored, content, disappointed, calm, hopeless, peaceful, serene, depressed.

The Mood Meter is divided into four color quadrants ? red, blue, green, and yellow ? each representing a different set of feelings. Different feelings are grouped together on the Mood Meter based on their pleasantness and energy level.

  • Red feelings: high in energy and more unpleasant (e.g., angry, scared, and anxious);
  • Blue feelings: low in energy and more unpleasant (e.g., sad, disappointed, and lonely);
  • Green feelings: low in energy and more pleasant (e.g., calm, tranquil, and relaxed);
  • Yellow feelings: high in energy and more pleasant (e.g., happy, excited, and curious).

Once we become more aware of our emotions, we begin to notice how they impact our decisions and behaviors. Over the course of the school year, we’ll move from recognizing which quadrant of the Mood Meter we’re in, to naming the precise emotion we are experiencing (elation, dismay, anxiety, calmness, curiosity?), to developing strategies for working with a range of emotions.