After reading our hopes and dreams to one another, we talked about what it will need to look, sound, and feel like in our classroom if we want to do all the things we dream of doing in first grade. As a class, we brainstormed a GIGANTIC list of rules we thought we needed. As a class, however, the students agreed that this list was TOO BIG and realized that most of the rules can fall under one of the rules we had listed: THE GOLDEN RULE. We settled on 2 rules to have in our class and made a promise to follow these guidelines:
The Golden Rule
Take care of classroom materials
Our class then reviewed what it looks like if we choose not to follow these rules. Many of us have practiced what it looks like to take a break to regain self control and be ready to learn. Today, we also reviewed what happens when students are unable to regain self-control in the break chair and are continuing to be disrespectful and not follow directions. Responsive Classroom refers to this procedure as "buddy teacher." In our classroom, if a student is not able to re-gain self control while taking a break within the classroom, the child will go with our "buddy teacher" (who comes to get the student) and take a break in their classroom. Today, Mrs. Wrigley and I taught our students what this looked like and we were able to learn what happens in this situation and where the buddy teachers' break chairs were held. In this instance, the student is expected to stay in the buddy teachers room for at least 5 minutes and will process with the buddy teacher what it will look like, sound like, and feel like upon re-entry to the classroom.
