ArticleSearch: first days of school

Ever drive down the road and realize the car is wobbly and perhaps in need of alignment? Sometimes I just know my class is going to feel the same way. Right before a…
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When principal Susan Mele arrived four years ago at Stewartsville Elementary School, the discipline was in chaos. More time was being spent on discipline than instruction; teachers were exhausted from dealing with…
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What’s going well in your classroom these days? At this time of year, especially, it’s common for teachers to focus more energy on challenges such as reteaching procedures that aren’t Read More…
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I'm definitely doing this each year from now on! As the end of the first quarter of the school year rolled around, I reflected on the benefits I'd seen from involving students…
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I recently had the pleasure of spending two full days at Garfield Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia, a school that has been using the Responsive Classroom approach for close to ten years.…
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When my new third grade students saw our classroom library for the first time this year, all of the book baskets on the shelves were empty, and although the baskets were labeled…
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It's getting to be the time of year when teachers' efforts during the first weeks of school begin to pay off. With classroom routines becoming well-established, a blossoming sense of community, and…
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What's your vision for your classroom community this year? How do you want the room to look, sound, and feel once the first weeks of school are over? In my last post,…
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Ms. Simpson signals for attention and waits a few seconds, until all students are looking at her, before explaining that today they'll be learning a reading strategy called "visualizing." Using second-grade-friendly language,…
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Early in my career as a school leader, I learned a great lesson: that as a principal, I needed to help children learn the skills that would enable the behavior their teachers…
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I once taught a second grader who sometimes subtly refused to go along with what we were doing. For instance, if we had to leave the classroom and John didn't want to…
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During my years of teaching, I have used individual written agreements coupled with a simple token system to give children with particularly challenging behavior the extra support they need to improve. Recently,…
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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…
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Like many educators these days, the teachers in my building have new initiatives added to our plates each year. We need (and want!) to collaborate as a faculty about them, but it's…
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If your classroom life is like mine these days, it's gotten harder to make learning fun. This year in my district we have a new teacher evaluation system, new report cards, new…
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I can't begin to describe how important the exchanges I've had with my children's teachers and principal have been to me this week. At various times, each of them reached out to…
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Our appreciation for social media grew quite a bit when we asked "Educators, how was the day?" on the Responsive Classroom Facebook page on Monday afternoon, and over 100 people responded. We…
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Teachers, principals, and other school staff nationwide are thinking about what to do and what to say tomorrow when they and their students return to school in the wake of the horrific…
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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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Not long ago I watched an animated group of second graders happily share their opinions about a children's picture book. They were responding to their teacher's open-ended question about what might have…
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An adapted excerpt from Chapter One of the award-winning book, How to Bullyproof Your Classroom
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For years, I had wanted to travel with my father to India, his native country. Finally, I had the opportunity—but the trip meant I would miss five days of school Read More…
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Bus rides are often the least supervised part of children's school days. They are also a part of the day without structured activities. That's a terrible combination. No wonder we hear about…
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Children need to develop the ability to think imaginatively and creatively. Children with imagination do a better job visualizing what they are reading, solving problems, entertaining themselves without devices, and thinking creatively…
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If you visited my classroom during Morning Meeting these days, you’d probably see first graders working with partners and using the conversation skills we’ve been working on all year. We’re Read More…
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By now my first grade students are pretty good at chatting with a partner. They know how to pair up quickly and how to decide who will go first. They sit knee-to-knee…
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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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