Articles Elementary School

I’m Not Acting as Role Model, I’m Serving as a Role Model: A Conversation with Authors Julie Kelly and Kirsten Howard

Julie Kelly and Kirsten Howard are Responsive Classroom consulting teachers and contributing authors for the forthcoming Empowering Educators series (Julie worked on Empowering Educators for Grades 3, 4, 5; Kirsten worked on…
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24

Empowering Educators to Get to Know Their Students: A Conversation with Authors Andy Moral and Heather Young

Early in the school year, all educators are faced with the same important task: getting to know their new students. To learn some effective strategies for making connections with students at…
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17

Empowering Adults to Support Each Other at the Beginning of a New School Year: A Conversation with Authors Emily Parrelli and Lisa Dewey Wells

Empowering Adults to Support Each Other at the Beginning of a New School Year: A Conversation with Authors Emily Parrelli and Lisa Dewey Wells Emily Parrelli and Lisa Dewey Wells…
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Meaningful Learning Through the Natural Learning Cycle

A new book from CRS Publishing, Make Learning Meaningful: How to Leverage the Brain’s Natural Learning Cycle in K–8 Classrooms, offers a brain-based approach to sustaining student engagement and provides examples…
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JAN

26

Trust Yourself – You Know a Lot Already

Did the first half of the school year give you a “déjà vu” feeling from your first year of teaching? Everything feels new and unfamiliar. A lot of time is spent ironing out…
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NOV

12

2020

My Approach to Virtual Kindergarten

Last spring, when terms like global pandemic, virus, hybrid-, distance-, synchronous-, and asynchronous-learning first became a regular part of educators’ vernacular and most educators across the country were thrown into unfamiliar territory,…
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2019

Setting Goals, Hopes, and Dreams: Connecting Students to the Community

Watching a student show up to school each day excited to learn is one of the great joys of teaching. We give our students that spark when we help them figure out…
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JAN

02

2019

Highlighting Academics with Belonging, Significance and Fun

“When we start the day with everyone together, face to face, welcoming each person, sharing news, listening to individual voices, and communicating as a caring group, we make several powerful statements. We…
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DEC

20

2018 – The Responsive Classroom SEL Year in Review

It’s been another great year at Center for Responsive Schools! We are grateful for the opportunity to continue sharing the Responsive Classroom approach to Social-Emotional Learning with educators around the world. Here…
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DEC

07

A Unified Approach to Teaching in a Diverse International School

Students come to ACS Cobham International School in England from all over the world. Some stay for their entire pre-collegiate school experience and others make a home there for just a few…
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DEC

06

Responding to Misbehavior with Empathy

Taking proactive steps to build a strong learning community, with practices like positive teacher language, interactive modeling, and investing students in rules through Hopes and Dreams, does a lot to prevent misbehavior…
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JUN

20

This Room Was Made for You and Me

Children need a classroom environment they can understand and trust. They need to understand the routines and to know where to find things, they need uncluttered spaces to do their work, and…
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APR

12

Setting a Vision for the Future

As the bustle of the after-school and after-work hours wound down for the night, I found my eight-year-old daughter in tears in her bedroom. She was hunched over her sketch pad. Colored…
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JUN

21

2017

Bring Social Studies Into Morning Meeting

Morning Meeting is a chance for teachers to introduce and reinforce critical academic and social-emotional skills for students of any age. Bringing social studies into Morning Meeting can give students extra opportunities…
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JUN

07

2016

What Is Morning Meeting?

Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting is an engaging way to start each day, build a strong sense of community, and set children up for success socially and academically. Each morning, students and teachers…
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APR

09

2015

The Building Blocks of Collaboration: Partner and Small-Group Chats (Grades 5–6)

Children learn a great deal, academically and socially, by collaborating—working together toward common goals. A good way to help students begin developing collaboration skills is by teaching them how to exchange ideas,…
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FEB

05

2015

Doing Language Arts in Morning Meeting

Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting is a great way to set a positive tone for the day of learning ahead while also having fun and building community. It’s also a great way to…
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APR

2014

Planning Morning Meetings for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

When Elizabeth Powell and I co-taught in an inclusion program for students on the autism spectrum, we discovered that Morning Meeting offered an excellent opportunity to address these students’ needs and to…
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JAN