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You’re a master of flexibility, an expert gear-switcher, and you know and teach every student at your school. You’re a Special Area Teacher. And you’re amazing! Being a Special Area Teacher means that, on any given day, your lesson plans are meeting the needs of students in vastly different physical,…

An adapted excerpt from Responsive Classroom for Music, Art, PE, and Other Special Areas. Published in July 2016 by Center for Responsive Schools, the book is packed with easy-to-implement ideas for adapting core Responsive Classroom practices to specialists’ unique teaching situations. Learn more about the book. What happens in the…

“What are your hopes and dreams for the school year?” Many teachers ask this question in the first weeks of school to help students get excited about learning and make a personal connection to what they will learn in school. Inviting students to name learning goals (hopes and dreams) right…

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 turned everything I knew right-side up! I now use many of the practices, such as Interactive Modeling, positive…

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 from, the key point is having them in place—and helping students feel invested by relating the rules to their own…

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 doing today?" "Can we play Excuse Me, Tag?" "Can we go full speed now?" "When are we…

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 they'd practiced, asking me to come next time and see them using their new skills, and comparing what…

“Little fish, little fish, swim out to sea,” I shout from the center of the field to the mass of students poised at one end line. From the center line, I watch as they pretend to swim across the “ocean” (the playing field) to reach the safety of the “shore”…

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 and classroom rule creation process while incorporating explorations in art. Early in the fall, we made a paper…

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, caring learners. But unlike self-contained classroom teachers, specialists see hundreds of students a week, often travel to more…

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 are some basic guidelines to help you decide on the role of technology in your elementary classroom: Use…

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 day-to-day life of the school. They call it "PE Kudos." Here's how it works: Earlier this year, the…

When I was a physical education teacher, I was always on the lookout for fun, cooperative games for my youngest students. I learned from experience that five- and six-year-olds need a great deal of physical activity, and they also have limited attention spans, so it was important to find games…

Setting and working toward goals with students is a key element of my work as a speech/language pathologist. Each student I work with has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) which names goals for that child. After reading Rules in School I realized that the “hopes and dreams” process described in…

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 your students better? A: At our school, we’ve found that fostering a culture of regular, two-way communication helps…

“They’re fine when they’re with me. But when they step outside the walls of my classroom, their behavior falls apart,” says a fifth grade teacher. It’s a common lament. Many teachers have success in teaching children to be calm and respectful in the classroom, only to have the children “lose…

When I was in elementary school more than fifty years ago, I struggled with geography. I found it very hard to keep all those place names and locations straight. The only thing I could do was start memorizing. I tried to picture the fifty states in relation to each other,…

Q: The classroom environment is calmer and friendlier when I work with the children to create classroom rules. But I still get reports from lunch, recess, and special area teachers about problematic behaviors in these areas. How can I help the children pay attention to our classroom rules even when…

Imagine this: It’s academic choice time in your classroom and groups of three and four students are clustered around computer workstations. Two groups are planning an Internet-based inquiry project. Another group is learning how to use new software so that they can create illustrations for a project. Yet another group…

When I was a child, music found its way into the daily life of most elementary classrooms. My sixth grade teacher, Mr. Monahan, started each day with the pledge and the piano. He would sit down at that old black upright each morning and we would sing a different patriotic song each day,…