What happens in the first few minutes of each class period can have a huge impact on students’ focus and productivity throughout the rest of the period. A calm and orderly opening…
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I’d been teaching for over 30 years and felt pretty comfortable with the way I managed my music classes. But a few years ago, I took a Responsive Classroom workshop, and it…
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Special area teachers may come up with their area rules on their own, use or adapt classroom rules, or use schoolwide rules. No matter where your special area rules come Read More…
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Starting on the first day of school, students wait excitedly at the door for PE to begin. And as soon as they see me, they always pepper me with questions: "What are we…
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I have such great memories of my third grade students' enthusiasm during the gymnastics unit in physical education. After this special, they'd come back to our classroom full of excitement about what…
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As an art teacher, I'm always looking for ways to adapt Responsive Classroom practices to specialist areas. Here's an idea I came up with for having students do the Hopes and Dreams…
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Music teachers, art teachers, physical education teachers, librarians, and other specialists are an integral part of school and play a role, as all staff members do, in teaching children to be responsible,…
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With new technologies arriving on the scene constantly, it can be hard for teachers to keep up. Which devices will improve the learning environment in your classroom? Which will gather dust? Here…
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At University School of Nashville, where I was an administrator and teacher for 23 years, the physical education teachers have recently been trying a new way of engaging students' parents in the…
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When Bristol Elementary School, a public school in a small Vermont town, started its journey of Responsive Classroom implementation a few years ago, it took a two-pronged approach, focusing simultaneously on classroom…
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Q: "Specials" teachers often see each child for only one hour a week. What's one way that you and a special area teacher have worked together to help him/her get to know…
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