1st 6 Weeks & Additional Responsive Classroom Information

Responsive Classroom

In the Responsive Classroom framework, the first six weeks of preschool prioritize building social-emotional safety, predictable routines, and community before ramping up complex academic demands. Teachers guide young children through a gradual phase-in of expectations, classroom tools, and self-regulation skills. In a preschool setting, Responsive Classroom's "First Six Weeks" looks less like formal instruction and more like slow, gentle play-based coaching. Because 3- and 4-year-olds are often experiencing their first group environment, everything is broken down into micro-steps with heavy emphasis on sensory experiences, comfort and play.

Weeks 1 & 2: Building Trust, Safety & Sensory Routines: The focus in these first few week is to ease separation anxiety, learn what "school" feels like, and establish emotional security. As teachers we do a lot of:

• • Modeling of specific actions and basic classroom routines, and then the children try each one together. We demonstrate and practice everything many times (I Do, You Do, We Do).

  • Introducing Morning Meeting and basic meeting components—a short greeting, calendar/weather, a simple movement or song, and sharing names through songs and games. 

  • Slowly introducing open-ended art and play materials. We use exploratory play  and guided discovery to introduce, explore and discuss each material and center in the classroom. 

  • Emphasizing verbal communication and "clear messages."

Weeks 3 & 4: Visual Goals, Friendship & Soft Boundaries: The focus now begins to shift to connecting the children's play and explorations to the children's lives (personal interests, the season, our school environment), introducing visual class rules, and managing big feelings. We introduce:

• • Emotions, feelings and how to handle them. We establish our "rules" about kindness, friendship, communication and conflict resolution.

  • We introduce our "Calming Corner" as a cozy spot with squishy pillows, sensory bottles, and stuffed animals where children can go when overwhelmed or missing home.

  • We talk about our families and then how our class is a family.

Weeks 5 & 6: Play Autonomy & Peer Problem-Solving: The first six weeks culminates with the children practicing and establishing the skills to navigate choice time independently, share space, and practice basic conflict resolution. We will also begin to introduce group projects and experiences that go beyond exploration. Each child will use the same materials and participate in the experience together, but their "products" will all look different based on their attention span, stamina and motor skills. Our goal at the end of the first six weeks is that:

• • Children comfortably navigate transitions, center rotations, quiet time, and closing circles with minimal teacher redirection.

  • Children select their own learning centers, manage their clean-up duties, and use teacher-modeled language to solve minor conflicts independently.

  • Exploration centers and group experiences expand to include more multi-step activities, cooperative art, and guided literacy/math play.