Posts belonging to Category The School Year
Posted by Chip on June 3, 2010
I was so inspired by Margaret Wilson’s recent blog post on “Last Read-Aloud of the Year”—she gives such great ideas for final classroom reading-writing connections leading into the summer break! It made me think about how much teachers and schools are doing to get kids to read over the summer as a way to address [...]
Categories: Books, The School Year |
Tags: children's writing, encouraging children to write, literacy, Margaret Berry Wilson, Responsive blog, summer literacy | 
2 Comments »
Posted by Chip on March 16, 2010
Parents, how are your kids doing this week with the time change? If you notice that they’re a little more worn out and fussier than usual, it may not be something going on at school or with friends—or then, again it might be, because all that stuff is harder this week, and they can’t figure [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Managing Behavior, The School Year |
Tags: adjusting to Daylight Savings Time, children's need for sleep, daylight savings time, Developmental Needs, Managing Behavior, The School Year | 2 Comments »
Posted by Chip on March 15, 2010
Some call this week at school “March Madness,” with a nod to the endless basketball parade on television this time of year. The analogy does fit if you think about the college kids who are sometimes playing three and four basketball games in as many days, the ones with the greatest stamina often the ones [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Managing Behavior, The School Year |
Tags: adjusting to Daylight Savings Time, children's need for sleep, daylight savings time, Developmental Needs, Managing Behavior, The School Year | 4 Comments »
Posted by Chip on November 20, 2009
My five-year-old granddaughter Lily showed me the Thankful Tree at her preschool when I picked her up the other day, and by the time we got home she wanted to make one for her home, too. Out into the field we went with her wagon collecting a small branch, leaves, pinecones, tall grasses, an old [...]
Categories: Holidays and Traditions, The School Year |
Tags: classroom traditions, showing appreciation | 2 Comments »
Posted by Chip on November 6, 2009
Elementary school teachers using Responsive Classroom® practices take time at the beginning of the school year to have students identify their learning “hopes and dreams” for the academic year ahead. Many combine this activity with asking parents to identify one or two hopes and dreams that they have for their children in school.
The first parent—teacher [...]
Categories: Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum, Parent Questions and Concerns, The School Year |
Tags: parent-teacher conferences, Responsive Classroom practices, setting learning goals | Post a Comment »
Posted by Chip on September 21, 2009
The first month of school is not even over yet, but the honeymoon may be.
Teachers often refer to the first few weeks of school as a “honeymoon” period when children are getting to know their new teacher and classmates and tend to be more or less on their best behavior. It doesn’t take long, however, [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Managing Behavior, The School Year |
Tags: Books, Caltha Crowe, Developmental Needs, Managing Behavior, Solving Thorny Behavior Problems | 4 Comments »
Posted by Chip on September 9, 2009
The room was still as the diverse group of ten- and eleven-year-olds waited for the President to come on stage. They seemed interested in the goings-on in the energetic high school audience and applauded when the President appeared, right along with the high school students.
It was a short speech with big ideas, and the fifth [...]
Categories: Diversity, The School Year |
Tags: Diversity, President Obama, The School Year | Post a Comment »
Posted by Chip on September 1, 2009
By now you may have heard that President Obama will be addressing our students nationwide on September 8th at 1 p.m. EST. It should be exciting and inspiring!
Here’s the letter sent out to principals by his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan:
Dear Principal:
In a recent interview with student reporter Damon Weaver, President Obama announced that [...]
Categories: Schoolwide Initiatives, The School Year |
Tags: Arne Duncan, Arnold Gesell, Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum, Michael Gurian, President Obama, Race to the Top, Schoolwide Initiatives, The Mind of Boys, The School Year, Time to Learn | Post a Comment »
Posted by Chip on August 28, 2009
“Listening and observing are two of the most important and underdeveloped teacher tools.”
As I watched the eager and sometimes anxious faces of children entering their new classrooms for the very first time this year, I thought about how quickly the social order—sometimes called the “pecking order”—in every classroom seems to get established. And I thought [...]
Categories: The School Year |
Tags: back to school, building adult community, listening and observing, The School Year | 7 Comments »
Posted by Chip on August 25, 2009
One of the more important “back to school” activities teachers facilitate for their students is their setting of personal and class goals for the year ahead. In theResponsive Classroom approach, the goal-setting strategy is known as “Hopes and Dreams. By the second week of school, kindergarten through six grade classrooms display colorful pictures of children [...]
Categories: The Responsive Classroom® approach, The School Year |
Tags: back to school, building classroom community, children's positive attributes, Positive Attributes | 2 Comments »
Recent Comments