This a picture of us with our Principal Mr. Guilliams and our NEST mentor Brandi Stanfilll (second from right). Brandi is based in NYC but is always available to us through email and video chat via Google Hangouts. She videos in to our class a couple times a year to give feedback on what she sees and to answer questions we have about current behaviors and challenges. She is a wealth of knowledge and has taught us to step back and figure out the antecedent, or trigger, to the behavior, in order to help control the environment and prevent future negative behaviors. She is encouraging and is always helpful with insight.

We communicate daily with parents through daily folders on paper, and the Class Dojo app. On Class Dojo, we can upload pictures of the class and even send private messages (like texts) to parents through the app. For students with behavior concerns, it is extremely helpful to give daily updates on both behavior outbursts as well as successes and positive improvements. We invite parents to come to the class to read or share about their career (we had a parent bring their 18 wheeler truck one day!). Including parents regularly helps build positive relationships.

We break up into stations or small groups to differentiate when we see students who are struggling with a concept.

When kids are stressed out.... Fidgets, cool-down corner, break cards, etc.

Using peer mentors or partners can help students build communication skills, feel included, and build relationships. We use partnerships in different ways. Sometimes we group partners in pairs of high reader/low reader, sometimes we assign tasks such as: this student write the sentence/other student help generate the idea, sometimes we let them choose their partners. We also use peer mentors when a student is having trouble obeying a direction. For example, if Student A was directed to be at the end of the line but refused, we may ask Student B to be a friend to him and walk with him. This makes it more inviting to follow the direction.