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Morning Meeting
Morning Meeting
Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting is an engaging way to start each day, build a strong sense of community, and set children up for success socially and academically. Each morning, students and teachers gather together in a circle for twenty to thirty minutes and interact with one another during four purposeful components:
Greeting: Students and teachers greet one another by name.
Sharing: Students share information about important events in their lives. Listeners often offer empathetic comments or ask clarifying questions.
Group Activity: Everyone participates in a brief, lively activity that fosters group cohesion and helps students practice social and academic skills (for example, reciting a poem, dancing, singing, or playing a game).
Morning Message: Students read and interact with a short message written by their teacher. The message is crafted to help students focus on the work they’ll do in school that day.
The Mood Meter:
The Mood Meter:
How are you feeling? How are you feeling right at this moment? How are the people in your family feeling? Experiencing multiple emotions is normal, and when we are in the midst of tumultuous times, these feelings intensify. In your child's classroom, they have been introduced to a Mood Meter. Using the Mood Meter at home is a great start for family conversations around feelings that help build emotional skills.
The Mood Meter is a tool for building self-awareness, the ability to identify emotions, as well as awareness of the feelings of others. You plot your feelings using the two axes, pleasantness, and energy. You're able to take a look and say, "I feel very intensely pleasant. I'm really feeling pleasant now and I have a lot of energy about it". This would place your feelings in the yellow quadrant.
While you have breakfast or before you leave for school ask your child where he/she finds themselves on the meter and share your own feelings. Then, when they return from school ask them again to plot their position on the Mood Meter. Check-in again in the evening at dinner or before bed. Remember that while some emotions may be uncomfortable, there are no ‘bad’ emotions, all feelings are ok!
Tips:
Post the Mood Meter in a visible area in your home like the refrigerator or in the Calming Area.
Create your own Mood Meter (Ex. 1 English/Spanish, 2, 3)or use our Mood Meter Template (English/Spanish)
Use a nametag, special magnet, photo, or picture to represent each family member- check-in throughout the day (morning, after school/work, bedtime) and move your image around depending on your mood.
Consider keeping a journal to track triggers for different feelings, to reduce red/blue feelings, and maintain/promote yellow and green feelings.
Use the Mood Meter to track characters on tv shows, movies, or favorite books.
What is a Calming Corner?
What is a Calming Corner?
A Calming Area is a quiet area in your home equipped with soothing materials and furnishings to help children, of all ages, calm down and regulate big emotions like stress, anxiety, or sadness. The Calming Area should be cozy and soothing for your child to spend time in. It doesn't have to be fancy, just inviting.
Why is a calming area important?
Becoming and remaining calm during big emotions is an important and learned life skill. When we experience these big emotions our amygdala, the part of our brain that moderates our emotions, goes into overdrive. Our pre-frontal cortex, the good decision-making part of our brain is taken over. Our brain activates a fight, flight, or freeze response limiting logic and reasoning. A designated Calming Area provides a safe place to physically and mentally release and regulate big emotions.
If you would like more information about the calming corner, follow the link
https://www.dallasisd.org/Page/71327
Respect Agreements
Respect Agreements
Family Treatment Agreements are a simple yet powerful tool to encourage family conversations and set behavior expectations and roles for family members. Family Treatment Agreements are especially useful as families balance work and school in unprecedented times. In the classroom, similar agreements are utilized. Students and teachers discuss and agree as a group what appropriate treatment should look like, student to student, student to teacher, and teacher to student. In the home, children and parents/caregivers discuss and agree as a family what appropriate treatment should look like between child to parent, parent to child, and sibling to sibling or family to home.
HOW TO CREATE A FAMILY TREATMENT AGREEMENT
Start by collaborating and discussing with your family what your family values (kindness, compassion, respect, forgiveness, generosity, teamwork, resilience, etc.) are. You may have a good sense of what these values mean to your family members but it's important to ask your child for their thoughts and input. Be prepared for and encourage all kinds of answers as you record everyone's contributions. Focused questions will assist you in developing the Family Agreement into a powerful tool that empowers children and parents to develop a sense of ownership of their decisions and accountability to themselves and others.
Please, follow this link for resources you can use at home: Family Treatment Agreement
Welcoming Activities
Welcoming Activities
A welcoming ritual sends a clear message to students that the day has begun. The opening, or greeting, ritual also helps students make a peaceful transition from whatever they were doing at home, on the bus, or on the playground to what they will be doing in the classroom by creating a clear boundary between home and school or between lunchtime and lesson time.
Engaging Practices
Engaging Practices
Engaging strategies are strategies, both written and kinesthetic, for facilitating greater student engagement
Optimistic Closures
Optimistic Closures
The closure is the time when you wrap up a class period or school day and help students organize information and experiences in a meaningful context in their minds. This helps students better understand what they have learned and provides a way in which they can apply it to the world around them. A strong closure can help students better retain information beyond the immediate learning environment.
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