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Lower Campus K-2
2900 W. 44th. St.
Phone: 612.920.9075
Fax: 612.920.8504
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Upper Campus 3-8
3210 W. 51st. St.
Phone: 612.927.8673
Fax: 612.927.7426
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Kindergarten Behavior Plan
Dear Parents,
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. We know that kindergarten children’s social and emotional growth is something that is very important. Our students work hard at learning how to make good choices all day long every day.
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”.
Every day, all day long, it is the teacher’s 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 and act 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 I am using Responsive Classroom and Discipline with a Purpose principles. Responsive Classroom is a classroom management system that promotes the principle 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, we play a game or sing and read the daily news. This 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 for routine procedure with the children. 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 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! |
