Articles

As the holiday season gets into full swing, maintaining a productive and pleasant classroom atmosphere can become a difficult task. During this time of year, students are frequently distracted by the excitement of holiday events at home and school events such as assemblies, class plays, and holiday dinners, which can…

Q: The students in my classroom come from many different traditions and cultures. I know the winter holidays could be a great opportunity for students to learn about each other’s cultures, but I’m not sure where to begin. Do you have any suggestions? A: I think asking this question shows…

Six feet of distance. Masks indoors. Individual materials for all. All the new safety requirements felt overwhelming when my middle schoolers sauntered into B-5 after ten weeks of virtual learning. We had begun to build a positive virtual community, but we were lacking practice when it came to being active…

Recently there has been discussion in our education ranks about how students have not had an uninterrupted school year for over eighteen months. The disruption started at the end of the 2019–2020 school year, and we are still not back to normal. Yet we’ve persevered and continued creating highly engaging…

The past two years have undoubtedly shaken up the way I approach teaching. Beginning the 2020–2021 school year virtually produced many daunting questions. How could I build community? How could I create opportunities for my students to be engaged in my reading intervention class? How could I keep growing my…

Bullying is unwanted aggressive behavior between school-aged children. It is a way that a child with physical or social power abuses a less powerful child. Cyberbullying, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is “bullying that takes place over digital devices” and involves “sending, posting, or sharing…

You hear mean and unwelcome teasing as students do math activities on electronic devices. You see exclusion when a group of students are playing an online game. You suspect that students are engaging in behaviors that are gateways to cyberbullying. What can you do? Teach safe and inclusive behavior as…

Traditions feel good. It is why we sing songs that we know well, why we go to the same store each week, and why we drive to work the same way even when we know there will be traffic. Similarly, there are many things we do in schools today because…

Every educator had hoped to begin this school year in a more familiar fashion, but as the year kicks off, it is clear that we are still not even close to normal. After the learning disruptions of the past two school years, it is reasonable for educators to wonder, “What…

The beginning of the school year is a time to get to know our students. We prepare community-building activities and lessons to help students feel safe in their classrooms and school and lay the groundwork for them to build a strong sense of belonging and significance. Knowing our students’ families…

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 Empowering Educators for Grades K, 1, 2). For these new resources, both authors wrote about the importance of…

  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…

  As seen in The First Six Weeks of School, 2nd edition!  “Peanut Butter, Grape Jelly” Peanut butter, grape jelly, peanut butter, jam Peanut butter, grape jelly, peanut butter, jam Peanut butter, grape jelly, peanut butter, jam I like peanut butter, yes, yes ma’am [Optional: repeat the lines above, substituting…

  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 are Responsive Classroom consulting teachers and contributing authors for the forthcoming Empowering Educators series (Emily worked on Empowering…

  In the first week of my teaching career, I had a colleague say to me, “You get only one chance to start the year off in a good place – if it starts off wrong, it will stay wrong.” As a new teacher, this statement really impacted me. I…

  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 of what the natural learning cycle looks and sounds like for teaching academics, discipline, and social-emotional skills in…

The beginning of the school year is a special opportunity: both a fresh start and a chance to apply lessons from the previous year. With an especially tumultuous year behind us, that fresh start feels particularly noteworthy, and the hard-earned lessons of the past year feel even more critical to…

Start the Year with Depth Connect students to the greater good from the beginning. In a recent episode of the podcast WorkLife with Adam Grant, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the current United States Surgeon General, discussed ways to fight loneliness and bring people together. In the beginning of his career, he…

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for...receiving your class roster for the new school year! You’re anxious to start planning and preparing for the students who will soon be sitting at their desks and smiling back at you. Because there is so much to be done, getting started can often…

With a new school year right around the corner, the first place my mind goes to is how I will organize and prepare my physical space. As a counselor for my school’s littlest learners, I like to set my room up for play therapy. I call it “the playroom.” But…

My grandma used to say, “You can’t pour from an empty pitcher.” We all know that teaching can be a stressful job. During the school year, we devote so much of our time and energy to students. The summer is a chance to step back, decompress, and recharge. But why…

The summer is an exciting time. The warmth brings with it opportunities to travel for vacations and, sometimes, work. As we emerge from this terrible pandemic, many of us are eager to take to the road and sky again. Because they spend their summers teaching workshops across the country, Responsive Classroom consulting…

The summer is a special season for educators. Our relationship to time changes in the summer: the sense that we are racing the clock to get everything done is replaced by the pleasure of getting lost in activities that help us rest, relax, and rejuvenate. Reading exemplifies summer’s rich possibility…

In July, the school is quiet. The daily stream of buses has stopped rolling in. Students, educators, and families have signed off from final Zoom meetings. July is a month for every member of the community to take a collective deep breath, soak in the warmth of the sun, and…

  In Conversation with Wisconsin Principal of the Year Tina Miller Tina Miller has been in education for 21 years – including the last five years as principal of Howe Elementary in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin – and was recently named the 2021 Wisconsin Elementary School Principal of the Year by…