Movement Breaks

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 limit for focus or endurance. Responsive Classroom teachers are always on the lookout for signs their students may be in…

The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (often referred to as The Nation’s Report Card) was recently released. The results made clear that today’s students are struggling with both reading and math, as there were noticeable declines in both subjects compared to previous report cards.  How Social and Emotional…

  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 the beginning of a new school year, Responsive Classroom sat down with Andy Moral and Heather Young. Andy…

You’ve made it to the last few months of the academic year! From spring fever to state testing, there are lots of reasons why students might need a nudge to stay engaged in academics around this time of year. Here are some tips that can help! Keep things moving Attention…

Get Moving! It’s 1:30 in the afternoon, and our class is preparing for language arts block. Recess and lunch seem like hours ago, and we still have an entire content area to teach. As my co-teacher and I begin setting up for the lesson, we notice Jenna rocking in her…

In my previous post, I talked about the importance of incorporating movement into classroom work and gave an example of one way to do that with an editing activity. In this post, I’d like to share a way to add movement when the class is reviewing material right before a…

It's 1:30 in the afternoon, and our class is preparing for language arts block. Recess and lunch seem like hours ago, and we still have an entire content area left to teach. As my co-teacher and I begin to set up for the lesson, we notice Jenna rocking in her…

As we approached testing season, the already anxiety-prone fourth graders I teach began asking questions about test dates, format, and content. These signs of stress, combined with antsiness brought on by the arrival of long-awaited spring weather and a week of spring break, all came at once this year. I…

Recently I've been thinking about how enthusiastically the students in my class take on challenges, and how challenging them has helped us build a more positive community and made learning more fun for all of us. How things have changed since the beginning of the year! As I got to…

While giving the January spelling assessment, I paused to look around the classroom and here's what I saw: Sara was yawning. Ben held his head in his hands. Julie's head was down on her paper, and Justin was tapping his pencil while jiggling his feet under his chair. It was…

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 said, "we need to put away our ecosystem books, our papers and pencils, and then make a standing…

So we know students need to sit still to accomplish some school tasks, but we don't want to keep them sitting for too long. How can we minimize the amount of time we require children to sit still? One great strategy is to keep direct teaching lessons short. A friend…

“My students have such a hard time sitting still! They call out all the time! They’re constantly out of their seats!” After hearing this refrain over and over again from teachers, I decided to do a little research. However, instead of trying to verify whether teachers were right about how…

I hear a lot from teachers who are feeling frustrated by students' "chattiness." They say things like "Mike, they're not bad kids, they just won't stop talking to each other. As soon as I stop talking, they start," and "The constant chatter is interfering with their learning. They're not paying…