Midyear Child Development Review: Adapting to Students

At the start of the school year, as new classroom communities are forming, teachers begin planning ways to connect and form relationships with new students. By the middle of the Read More…
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Child Development

Question:What are your goals in sharing knowledge about child development with students’ families, and how do you go about it?
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Singing with Children: Tips for Teachers

I remember singing along with friends in my elementary school days. Teachers and students together began each day with singing. We learned about music from our music teacher, but we sang everywhere,…
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Know Your Students: Developmentally Responsive Planning

Knowing the students in your class happens in different ways for different teachers. A middle school teacher who sees 150 adolescents for one subject, 45 minutes a day will likely Read More…
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Lively Learning for Professional Development

With increasing demands to meet rigorous curriculum standards and improve the quality of instruction, efficient, productive professional development (PD) and staff meetings are more critical than ever. Too often, though, these sessions…
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Naming What Children Can Do

Mr. Park's fourth grade class was the most impulsive and squirmy group of children he'd ever taught. Children speaking out of turn, talking to neighbors, playing with small objects, or making odd…
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Why Do Children Act Silly or Show Off?

Sometimes, we forget that the children we teach are just that—children. Humor, silliness, playfulness, and showing off are hallmarks of childhood, and we should expect to experience some at every grade.
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Invisible Children

Are there invisible children at your school? A recent series of comments on the Responsive Classroom Facebook page got me thinking again about how many children go through their school days feeling…
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Cooperative Games Children Love

Question: What's one way you've refashioned a competitive game to make it more cooperative and still fun? 
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Lunch Staff Learn Communication Techniques to Help Children Improve Behavior

“They’re fine when they’re with me. But when they step outside the walls of my classroom, their behavior falls apart,” says a fifth grade teacher. It’s a common lament. Many teachers have…
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Responding to Learning Loss

In June 2020, the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company released “COVID-19 and Student Learning in the United States” a report that outlined the alarming potential impact of school closures Read More…
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Check the Boxes of Self-Reflection

Our beliefs drive our actions and the results of our actions reinforce our beliefs. When we endeavor to change our actions, often we focus on the relationship between our actions Read More…
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Yardsticks Guides

Share Yardsticks Guides with families at open houses, teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights and keep one on hand in the classroom for quick and easy reference.
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Yardsticks Guides: Elementary (Gr. K-6) Sample Pack

The Elementary Sample Pack includes Yardsticks Guides for grades K-6. Share Yardsticks Guides with families at open houses, teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights and keep one on hand in the classroom for…
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Yardsticks Guides: Middle School (Gr. 5-8) Sample Pack

The Middle School sample pack includes one of each Yardsticks Guide in the Middle School grade range. Share Yardsticks Guides with families at open houses, teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights and keep…
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Responsive Classroom for Middle School

With our Middle School approach we apply the defining characteristics of Responsive Classroom--developmental responsiveness, engaging academics, positive community, and effective management--to the unique needs of young adolescents, with the goal of promoting…
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Leadership Conference Sessions

Monday, November 12th   Block 1   Full Block Sessions (2 hours)   Session 1.0 | 9:30 am – 11:30 am   Impacts of Trauma: How Responsive Classroom Practices Support Read More…
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Teachers Conference Sessions

  Friday, November 9th   Block 1   Full Block Sessions (2 hours)   Session 1.0 | 9:30am – 11:30 am   Impacts of Trauma: How Responsive Classroom Practices Support Read More…
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SOAR Schools

At SOAR, a network of public charter schools in Northeast Denver, Responsive Classroom practices are embedded in the daily life of schools, and the approach itself is integrated into the network's core…
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Time-Out: Avoiding the Punishment Trap

May 2002Question:I have a dilemma about time-out. I tell my students that time-out is not a punishment, but I know it can feel like punishment when I send them to time-out for…
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On Turning Seven

One recent January, I noticed something odd each time my class of first graders settled into their writing workshop tasks: A handful of children had begun writing with tiny, tiny letters. "You…
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Taking the Responsive Classroom Approach Schoolwide

At a time when many policy makers are concerned primarily with children's cognitive development and how they do on standardized tests, educators from around the country gathered in Amherst, Massachusetts, to reaffirm…
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Schoolwide Rules Creation

Sheffield Elementary, a grade 3–6 school in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, faced a challenge familiar to many educators: how to develop a more consistent approach to discipline from classroom to classroom and in…
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Nice Work

As first appeared in Education Week, April 30, 2003. Adapted and reprinted with permission.The children in Jessica Kimmel's fifth grade class at Hyde Elementary School in Washington, DC, are gathered in a…
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Movement Activities That Help Learners of Every Age Refocus

An increase in wiggles and whispers or holes torn in papers from too much erasing can be important clues that your students are beginning to reach their individual or developmental Read More…
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Tina Darling

Tina Darling serves as an assistant principal at the Mason Early Childhood Center in Mason, Ohio. During her 18 years in education, she has served as a kindergarten teacher, learning Read More…
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Connecting With New Families Early in the School Year

Although it is summer break, it is never too early to begin forming relationships with your new families. Caregivers and children alike have anxiety about the uncertainty of a new Read More…
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