Responsive Classroom: Responsive Classroom emphasizes the social, emotional, and academic growth of elementary school students in a strong and safe learning environment. The Responsive Classroom approach incorporates the students’ social and emotional growth into their academic learning, stemming from the notion that children learn best through social interaction and when they are explicitly taught social and emotional skills along with their academic lessons. The goal is to enable optimal student learning, and through the implementation and refining of classroom and school-wide practices, the Responsive Classroom approach has been shown to increase academic achievement in elementary school students, decrease problem behaviors, improve social skills, and raise the quality of instruction.
My goal is to build a safe, encouraging, challenging and joyful classroom for all students. During the first few weeks of school, the children and I will be working together to build a community of learners in which respect and caring are the basis for all our interactions. In order to accomplish this, there are a few things that we will be doing. We will:
• Make our class rules together- As a group we will develop a set of rules for our classroom. This “contract” will be signed by each member of the class indicating that the rules have been accepted. Generally, the rules first graders create involve four main ideas: Respect yourself, respect others, respect school property, and treat others the way you would like to be treated.
• Model- As a class we will be modeling our routines and appropriate behaviors. We will also be practicing them to ensure that every child can be successful.
• Use reminders and redirection- When problems arise, the child will first be reminded of appropriate behaviors, then redirected to the desired behavior.
• Discipline is also monitored on an individual basis with logical consequences. For example, a student runs in the hallway. The logical consequence would be to go all the way back to the starting point and try again. If the behavior is extreme and needs your immediate attention or logical consequences are happening often on the same misbehavior, the student will fill out a stop and think sheet. This sheet will be sent home, signature will be needed, and the sheet will need to be returned.
• Home contact- If the above steps are not working, I will contact the parents and work with them to devise a plan to help the child get his or her behavior back on track.
• Star Leader- Students will receive positive recognition when they are Star Leader of the Week.
Finally, to emphasize the importance of treating each other with kindness, we will be reading the following books: Have You Filled a Bucket Today? Just the Way I Am When I Grow Up A Place for Everything Sammy and the Pecan Pie Lily and the Yucky Cookies Sophie and the Perfect Poem Goob and His Grandpa
These books deal with concepts such as the importance of being yourself, planning ahead, staying organized, finding your strengths, listening, working together, and valuing friendship.