When, Where, and How Often?
Sample Elementary 20 Week Scope and Sequence
Essential Questions
When, Where, and How Often?
There are important questions to consider when planning your Phase 1 implementation of WhyTry. When using the implementation checklist, we ask you to consider how often you’ll teach each week, in what setting or environment, as well as when it will take place. We’ve provided several resources below to help you answer this question!
Scopes and Sequences
We have prepared pre-built lessons to accommodate the most common implementation at the elementary and secondary levels. You can access the prebuilt lessons either from the welcome page or from the buttons below. If you are considering implementing WhyTry with a different timeline than the one we’ve built out, you can either use our prebuilt lessons and modify them to accommodate your schedule or you can build your own lessons using the toolkit. If you need help putting together a Scope and Sequence, please reach out to us at support@whytry.org.
Implementation Ideas
Ideas for different settings and environments
Idea 1:
Add WhyTry to an existing course for one period per week per semester
This is probably the most common WyTry implementation idea. WhyTry is added to an existing course, such as health, study skills or English, for one class per week. The regular course teacher handles non-WhyTry classes. This usually allows for 12-18 contact hours of WhyTry instruction.
Idea 2:
Create a new semester long WhyTry course
Create a full course dedicated to WhyTry provides plenty of time for discussion and activities. It could meet 2-5 periods per week. This allows plenty of time for activities as well as be perfect when a part of another SEL program or curriculum.
Idea 3:
Advisory periods
These are regular sessions where selected students are pulled out of classes to meet with a counselor, social worker or teacher. WhyTry provides consistent curriculum for these mandatory sessions.
Idea 4:
Elementary classrooms or secondary homeroom
Every student gets 15-20 minutes of social and emotional skills every day using WhyTry. One day is a simple activity, another day is listening to a song, another day is a discussion. Each metaphor can be used as the theme for a month.
Idea 5:
Self-contained classrooms
These special behavioral classrooms offer maximum flexibility for integrating into WhyTry social and emotional skills into academics. WhyTry also provides a foundation for classroom management.
Idea 6:
After-school programs
Many schools and community centers have built after-school programs around WhyTry. It provides a structure with activities, media and valuable skills that engage youth and give them an alternative to destructive behaviors.
Idea 7:
Transition programs
The transitions from school to work, foster-care to independence, and incarceration to freedom are the most difficult and dangerous points in a young person’s life. WhyTry is used to provide crucial skills to help youth make the transition successfully.