Opening Chapter: Intro to Responsive Classroom

My third year of teaching has begun, and I've started a new adventure teaching a self-contained 6th grade. With that, I've learned many new skills and strategies.

We've, my 6th graders and I, have had a great start to our school year, and part of that is due to my introduction to Responsive Classroom. 

The goal of this classroom approach is to create a positive learning environment that encourages not only academic growth, but also social and emotional.

You can learn about this resource yourself on their website: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/ 

The first expectation is to hold a morning meeting. There are four components to morning meeting:

1. A Morning Message displayed when the students enter the classroom to welcome them and possibly present them with a warm-up/review activity for the day.
2. In a circle, have students Greet each other. These can vary each day, sometimes serious and teaching them how to greet others formally or ask them to greet each other in accents.
3. Next, students have the opportunity to Share. This is very similar to what I knew as "Show and Tell" during my elementary days. My students sign up to share each morning. Most of them share important events that are happening in their lives. Other students are encouraged to ask questions or relate to the student sharing. The goal is to create an environment where students are comfortable and confident. They also hope that students learn to be empathetic. 
4. Then we do an Activity together. These can vary. Some may be educational and relate to current lessons, or they can simply be fun. My 6th graders love playing Simon Says; Do What I Said, Not What I Say; In the Club; or sing goofy songs together.
5. As a class, we return to the Morning Message. 

This is a fantastic start to our day, and I love that we always have a positive start to our day.  Here is a greeting activity that we sometimes do on Fridays. The students all put one shoe into the middle, and one student starts by grabbing a shoe, and they must guess until they find the owner. This is the person they greet, and that person then grabs a shoe. The last person greets whoever started.

The other great start to our year, recommended by Responsive Classroom, was to write our class rules together. We did this in steps throughout the first week of school.

          Day 1: We determined what our Hopes and Dreams, our goals, were for the school year.

          Day 2: We brainstormed what Rules and Expectations would be necessary for us to achieve our Hopes and Dreams.

          Day 3: We organized our rules into Three Categories, but I didn't tell the students what each of the categories were about. Then, as a class we had to summarize the group of words into a Rule/Expectation.

          Day 4: In small groups, my students create Displays of their rules to remind them of their expectations for the school year.

Here are the rules that my students wrote: 

Walking into our classroom, you might not know what these rules mean, so let me explain.

1. The Golden Rule: Respect Yourself and Others

2. The Silver Rule: Respect Property

3. The Bronze Rule: Respect Our Work

This is how my 6th graders summarized our rules.

The addition that I also practiced with this was the reading of RJ Palacio's Wonder. Here we were able to relate our rules to the characters in the story and how they might benefit from using our rules.

My students are in love with this novel! Some even ordered a copy from our Scholastic Book Order. 

What have you done to have a positive start to your school year?