A large part of the kindergarten experience is social and emotional growth. Our students work hard at learning how to make good choices all day long every day. Our Kindergarten Behavior Plan deals with basic respect for each other so that children can learn in this large group. Kindergarten children are learning how to take direction from a new adult, how to be in a large group and how to be at our school.
They are learning:
How to respect each other
How to respect all adults
How to be considerate and polite with each other
How to use self control
How to handle problems and conflicts appropriately
How to control their own emotions
How to wait their turn and share
How to listen and follow directions’
How to respect and care for their environment
How to think…if I do this, what will happen next?
How to think…this happened by accident, what should I do now?
How to say “I am sorry”.
Take a Break - Responsive Classroom
We continue to learn routines. We continue learning how to solve problems. Knowing that our classroom and our school as a "Peace Zone." We have discussed school rules. We have been practicing "Take a Break." This is a Responsive Classroom technique to give a chance to think about what they are doing that isn't helping the class learn. We do not consider this punishment. It is a time for a child to think about their behavior and change it for next time.
We are learning how to be at school in a way that makes everyone feel good.
Every day, all day long, it is the teachers goal to help the children to shape their behavior towards these shared social interaction goals. We know that you as parents are doing the same thing at home. This is a long list! These are high expectations and they are very important. Some children come already knowing how to think this way. Others come ready to learn. Our group is doing very well.
During these first weeks of school we have been stressing: friendship, helping the group learn, fixing and solving problems and why we do this at school. I am hoping, that with explanation and consistent recognition, when they’re remembering how to behave in a respectful and responsible way that they will learn how to be in school.
Along with this friendship theme we use Responsive Classroom. Responsive Classroom is a classroom management system that promotes the principles that social learning goes hand in hand with academic learning. A hope of the teacher in a Responsive Classroom is that we all learn how to take care of each other.
We have a meeting everyday where everyone is greeted, we share our story, we play and sing a game and read daily news; which promotes a feeling of building community and that every single person is important. We unwrap the classroom through guided discovery, where things are deliberately explored for creative use and care of the item. We use practice and modeling with the children for routine procedure. We show, notice and practice how things should look.
We will write and draw about our Hopes and Dreams about this year, as well as write our own rules or agreements that we will generate ourselves. Our rules will be formed around the main rules of the school. After we finish this important work, you will get a copy of our classroom rules. Please take time to talk to your child about them.
During these first weeks of school, learning procedures and teaching children self-control are so important. If we can learn this well we will save so much time all year. We practice this all day. One way Responsive Classroom redirects children is by asking them to “take a break”, which is a time a child will be asked to sit away from the group. This consequence is used if they haven’t followed procedures or haven’t used self-control. During these first weeks everyone gets a chance to practice taking a break so they know how it feels. The whole purpose is to help them realize that we all need to help the group learn.
Right now verbal reminders and verbal recognition of you are “doing it right” is working well. During the year, if a child has made a big mistake and needs to work harder on making good choices we may send home a Behavior Alert or an Improvement Plan. A Behavior Alert, will be a written alert that a child made a mistake, or is continuing to make a mistake. It is an alert to you that, this is happening in school and would you have a conversation with your child about this behavior. An Improvement Plan will be a monitoring system that will indicate if improvement is being made on a daily basis or if the problem is not changing. If we believe a child needs an Improvement Plan we will give you a call first, so that we can discuss the issue and proceed from there.
Kindergarten is such an important year for setting the tone for school. Kindergarten is such a fun year!
Thank you for letting us be partners with you in educating your child!