From “Me” to “We”: Building Belonging Through Social-Emotional Learning

As we begin our fall session, our learning starts with something very important to every young child: Who am I?

Our All About Me inquiry invites children to explore their identity, their feelings, their families, their school, their community, and the environment around them. While these experiences may look simple from the outside, they are building the foundation for social-emotional learning, confidence, empathy, and a strong sense of belonging.

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It Begins With “Me”

Young children are still discovering who they are. Through self-portraits, conversations, stories, photographs, dramatic play, and classroom experiences, children begin thinking about questions such as:

“What do I look like?”

“What makes me happy?”

“Who is in my family?”

“What am I good at?”

“What makes me, me?”

When children are given opportunities to represent themselves through drawing, painting, conversation, movement, and play, they develop more than artistic or language skills. They begin developing a positive sense of identity and self-awareness.

Learning the Language of Feelings

Understanding ourselves also means learning to recognize and communicate our emotions.

Throughout the day, children experience excitement, disappointment, frustration, pride, worry, joy, and many other feelings. Rather than seeing these moments as interruptions to learning, we recognize them as opportunities for learning.

Teachers help children identify what they are feeling, find words to express those feelings, listen to the feelings of others, and discover appropriate ways to respond.

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A disagreement over a toy, for example, becomes an opportunity to practice saying:

“I was still using that.”

“Can I have a turn when you’re finished?”

“That made me feel sad.”

“Can we do it together?”

These everyday interactions are where children begin learning empathy, communication, self-regulation, negotiation, and problem-solving.

Be Kind. Be Safe. Be Responsible.

Our school community is guided by three simple expectations:

Be Kind. Be Safe. Be Responsible.

For young children, these words become meaningful when they can experience them in real situations.

Being kind might mean inviting someone to play, helping a friend, listening to another person’s ideas, or noticing when someone needs comfort.

Being safe means learning how our choices affect ourselves and others—from walking safely inside the classroom to using materials thoughtfully and respecting one another’s bodies and personal space.

Being responsible means caring for our belongings, classroom materials, plants, animals, and shared spaces and beginning to understand that everyone contributes to our community.

Instead of simply telling children the rules, we help them discover why these choices matter.

My Family, My School, My Community

As our inquiry expands, All About Me naturally becomes All About Us.

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Children bring photographs and stories about the people who are important to them. They discover that families can look different while sharing many of the same experiences of love, care, traditions, and belonging.

From family, we expand into our school community. Children begin recognizing themselves as contributing members of their classroom:

“This is my classroom.”

“These are my friends.”

“These are my teachers.”

“I belong here.”

Eventually, that understanding reaches beyond our classroom into the larger community and environment. Children begin considering how we care for our school, our neighborhood, nature, and the living things around us.

From “Me” to “We”

Social-emotional learning doesn’t happen during one lesson or one part of the day. It happens when children negotiate whose turn comes next, comfort a friend, communicate frustration, work together on a construction, care for classroom materials, welcome someone into their play, or solve a problem together.

Our fall All About Me inquiry begins with the individual child, but its purpose reaches much further.

When children understand who they are, they are better prepared to understand who others are.

When they know that their feelings matter, they begin recognizing that other people’s feelings matter too.

And when children feel that they truly belong to a community, they begin to understand that they also have a responsibility to care for it.

That is how we move from “Me” to “We”—building a classroom community where children learn to be kind, be safe, and be responsible, while developing the confidence, empathy, and sense of belonging they will carry with them far beyond the classroom.

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从“我”到“我们”：通过社会情绪学习建立归属感

随着秋季学期的开始，我们的学习从一个对每个幼儿都

非常重要的问题开始：我是谁？

我们的“关于我”（All About Me）主题探究邀请孩子们探索自己的身份、情绪、家庭、学校、社区以及周围的环境。虽然从表面上看，这些体验可能很简单，但它们正在为孩子们建立重要的基础——社会情绪学习、自信心、同理心以及强烈的归属感。

从“我”开始

幼儿正在不断发现和认识自己。通过自画像、交流讨论、故事、照片、角色扮演以及各种课堂体验，孩子们开始思考：

“我长什么样？”

“什么事情让我开心？”

“我的家里有谁？”

“我擅长什么？”

“是什么让我成为独一无二的我？”

当孩子们有机会通过绘画、艺术创作、交流、动作和游戏来表达自己时，他们获得的不仅仅是艺术或语言方面的能力。他们也开始建立积极的自我认同和自我意识。

学习表达情绪的语言

了解自己，也意味着学习认识和表达自己的情绪。

在一天的生活中，孩子们会经历兴奋、失望、挫折、自豪、担心、快乐以及许多不同的感受。我们不会把这些时刻看作对学习的干扰，而是把它们视为重要的学习机会。

老师帮助孩子们辨认自己的感受，学习用语言表达情绪，倾听和理解他人的感受，并探索适当的回应方式。

例如，当孩子们因为一个玩具产生分歧时，这就成为练习表达和解决问题的机会：

“我还在玩这个。”

“你玩完以后可以轮到我吗？”

“这样让我觉得很难过。”

“我们可以一起玩吗？”

正是在这些每天都会发生的真实互动中，孩子们开始学习同理心、沟通、自我调节、协商以及解决问题的能力。

友善 · 安全 · 负责任

我们的校园社区以三个简单而重要的行为准则为基础：

友善（Be Kind）

安全（Be Safe）

负责任（Be Responsible）

对于幼儿来说，当这些词语与真实的生活经验联系起来时，它们才真正具有意义。

友善可以是邀请别人一起玩、帮助朋友、倾听他人的想法，或发现有人需要安慰时主动给予关心。

安全意味着学习理解自己的选择如何影响自己和他人——从在教室里安全行走，到正确使用材料，以及尊重彼此的身体和个人空间。

负责任意味着照顾自己的物品、爱护课堂材料、植物、动物和共同使用的空间，同时逐渐理解：每个人都可以为我们的集体做出贡献。

我们不仅仅告诉孩子规则是什么，更重要的是帮助他们理解：为什么这些选择很重要。

我的家庭、我的学校、我的社区

随着探究不断深入，“关于我”（All About Me）自然而然地发展成为“关于我们”（All About Us）。

孩子们带来照片，并分享对自己重要的人和家庭故事。他们逐渐发现，每个家庭可能看起来不同，却拥有许多共同的经历——爱、关怀、传统以及归属感。

从家庭出发，我们进一步认识学校这个社区。孩子们开始意识到自己也是班级中重要并且能够做出贡献的一员：

“这是我的教室。”

“这些是我的朋友。”

“这些是我的老师。”

“我属于这里。”

最终，这份认识会从教室延伸到更大的社区和周围的环境。孩子们开始思考，我们可以怎样照顾学校、社区、大自然以及生活在我们周围的各种生命。

从“我”走向“我们”

社会情绪学习并不只发生在某一节课或一天中的某个特定时间。它存在于孩子们每天真实的生活和互动之中。

当孩子们协商接下来轮到谁、安慰朋友、表达自己的挫折、合作完成一个建构作品、爱护课堂材料、邀请别人加入游戏，或一起寻找解决问题的方法时，社会情绪学习正在发生。

我们的秋季“关于我”主题探究从每一个孩子自身开始，但它的意义远远超越了“我”。

当孩子们理解“我是谁”时，他们就更有能力去理解“别人是谁”。

当孩子们知道“我的感受很重要”时，他们也开始认识到“别人的感受同样重要”。

当孩子们真正感受到自己属于一个集体时，他们也开始理解：自己也有责任去关心和照顾这个集体。

这就是我们如何从“我”（Me）走向“我们”（We）——共同建立一个让每个孩子都拥有归属感的学习社区。在这里，孩子们每天都在学习：

友善、安全、负责任。

与此同时，他们也在逐渐培养自信、同理心和归属感——这些重要的能力将陪伴他们走出教室，并持续支持他们未来的成长。