The End of the School Year: A Time to Pause and Celebrate Successes

The walls of the classroom look emptier than they looked a month ago and a few remnants of the presence of students remain: a pencil here or a sticky note there containing a past thought. As the last student leaves the room in which you’ve built a community, many emotions can fill the empty space. Read More »
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APR

25

2019

Six Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month in the Classroom

Did you know that according to poets.org, National Poetry Month is actually the biggest literary celebration in the world? It’s never too early to start fostering a love of the English language…
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DEC

26

2018

Healthy Teachers Make Healthy Classrooms

Responsive Classroom Consulting Teachers Joe Tilley, Luke Mason, Jenny Spero, and Ramona McCullough, and Professional Development Designer Michelle Gill weigh in on the importance of self-care. You already know that social…
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OCT

25

2018

Restoring Trust After Bullying

We do our best to create positive learning communities and stop bullying before it starts, but when bullying has already happened, how do you repair the classroom community? We asked Responsive Classroom…
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JUL

26

2018

What Are Your Hopes?

As we prepare for our upcoming Teachers and Leadership Conferences, we’ve been thinking a lot about hope. Students’ hopes and dreams are, of course, an integral part of the beginning of the…
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MAR

22

2018

It’s Time to Reconnect

Helping students build relationships with each other is a key to creating an optimal learning environment. Stronger bonds mean students will be less likely to be unkind, to exclude others, to call…
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DEC

21

2017

The Natural Learning Cycle

It’s the perfect time of year to pause and reflect on your personal teaching and learning goals—the hopes and dreams you set when school began. First, let’s take a step back and…
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OCT

24

2017

What is Quiet Time?

Consider the energy and intensity that often accompany the middle of the day. Lunch and recess provide students with opportunities to run, play, eat, and socialize, and teachers often see this energy…
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OCT

12

2017

Stop Bullying Before It Starts

National Bullying Prevention Month is an opportunity to reflect on a serious problem that not only deprives students of a joyful learning environment, but can have toxic effects on the recipient that…
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JUL

20

2017

Getting Started with Responsive Classroom

No matter where in the year you are, when you’re feeling ready to start using the Responsive Classroom approach, that’s the right time to begin! But where do you start? “It’s all…
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OCT

05

2016

Self-Assessment and Goal Setting Go Hand in Hand

When built into daily schoolwork, goal-focused self-assessment fosters academic achievement by helping students develop lifelong skills.
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MAR

14

2016

Breathe Life into Learning with Engaging Academics

Building the characteristics of engaging academics into lessons helps students do rigorous learning in a dynamic way. Students not only engage with and enjoy their learning, but are more willing to tackle…
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NOV

03

2015

Our Classroom Walls

During the school day we spend most of our time in our classroom and so do twenty to thirty students (give or take a few!). Many of us feel that our classroom…
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OCT

08

2013

Whose Classroom Is It?

One way the Responsive Classroom approach has changed my teaching is that I have learned to think of the classroom as a space that belongs to all of us, rather than as…
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AUG

05

2013

Envisioning Your Classroom

I started setting up my classroom a few days ago, and of course I was thinking about the first days of school, but what really guided my decisions was a vision of…
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DEC

12

2012

Are You Having Fun?

One afternoon in late October, my third grade class laughed together for the first time this year. It happened as we were getting ready to transition from science to math. "Okay," I…
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NOV

11

2012

November Blues

What teachers have to deal with at this time of year (in addition to teaching, of course) can be daunting—writing report cards, meeting with families at conferences, grading papers, adjusting to a…
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AUG

29

2012

Classroom Display Ideas

Last spring, I encouraged you to take a good, hard look at your classroom displays and think about how, in the future, you might increase the emphasis on displaying student work and…
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NOV

16

2011

Need a New Mattress?

At this time of year, people who work in schools often start feeling a bit frayed. Now that the school year is well underway, the "honeymoon period" of the first weeks is…
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JUL

25

2011

Downtime

By mid-July, my two children had finally settled into summer. I knew when I got downstairs one morning and saw my nine-year-old son, Ethan, coming through the back door in his bathrobe…
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JUL

01

2011

Mudge

How can you create a powerful sense of community in your classroom? With the leisure of summer, we can ponder questions like this and plan ahead for next year.
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NOV

01

2010

Welcoming Hannah

One November morning, I learned that Hannah, a transfer student, would join my third grade class the very next day. Feeling fortunate to have a little notice, I shared the news with…
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JUL

26

2010

Success for Substitutes

Just about every teacher needs to be away from the classroom at some point during the year. Whether you're away for a half day, a day, or several days, you'll want to…
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APR

15

2010

Our Passion for Teaching

I was so moved by your responses to my last post about the importance of bringing joy to classrooms! The images of college students being read to, classes dancing at “boogie breaks,”…
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APR

02

2010

The Importance of Joy

I’ve been thinking recently yet again about how important joy is to classroom life and learning. My ten-year-old niece got me started down this path when she returned from visiting a school…
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APR

01

2003

Bringing Classroom Rules to Life

School rules. The mere mention of these words can elicit heavy sighs and moans from children and adults alike. Rules order us around. Rules constrict us. "No running, no hitting, no pushing,…
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FEB

01

2002

Celebrating Valentine’s Day

Question:Holidays can sometimes be a mixed blessing in schools. For example, students love to exchange cards on Valentine’s Day but every year there are problems. Sometimes the exchange seems too competitive and…
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