Classroom ManagementSchool CultureSEL

SEL Strategy: The Name Game

Build community and strengthen relationship skills with "The Name Game." This fun SEL strategy is the perfect icebreaker for the first day of school or new group meetings.
By Ilana Nankin, Ph.D.
May 4, 2022

Written by

By Ilana Nankin, Ph.D.

Topics

Classroom ManagementSchool CultureSEL

Name Game is a fun SEL strategy that aligns with the CASEL social-emotional learning competency of Relationship Skills. This is a great activity to use on the first day of school or as a group of students are meeting each other for the first time.

Check out our video to see our Founder & CEO, Dr. Ilana Nankin, modeling how to teach The Name Game to both younger and older students!

The Name Game is one strategy to build Social Intelligence, one of the five layers of Human Intelligence. The more we understand, embody, and teach Human Intelligence, the more we co-create what education was always meant to be. If this vision resonates, explore how the Master’s Degree is helping educators nationwide integrate these capacities into daily teaching and leadership.

About the Author

Ilana Nankin, Ph.D.
Founder & Co-CEO

Dr. Ilana Nankin is the Founder and Co-CEO of Breathe for Change and an award-winning entrepreneur, teacher educator, and former public school teacher. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with research demonstrating the link between educator well-being, SEL, and student learning. As a lead professor of the Human Intelligence course, Ilana weaves embodied awareness and systemic well-being into a clear theory of change: transform educators to transform classrooms.

Get in touch
Easter Egg Background

Take a moment to breathe.

Before you return to your students, return to yourself. Breathe with us – inhale calm, exhale stress.

Follow the motion and find your rhythm again.

Start Now

Breathe in

Breathe out