Taking a little coffee break

This year in 5th grade, we are trying something a little different! We have struggled to find a "behavior system" that works for us in the classroom, so we stopped searching and created our own!

As teachers, we believe that self-regulation is an incredibly important life-long skill that children need to develop in order to be successful. It is our job to teach kids to notice, name, and navigate their emotions. We want the kids to understand that it is okay to feel a wide range of emotions, and help them develop strategies that work for them to improve their mental state and ability to learn.

Each morning, we start with a mental health check-in where the students write their name on the back of a post-it and place it in the area that matches how they are feeling at that time. It is amazing to see the kids being honest and open with their feelings. It is also good for us to see what baggage the kids are coming in with each morning.

That is just the start of our self-regulation journey. As a class, we also developed norms to live by in the classroom. Together, we brainstormed ideas that would make our learning environment safe, effective, and fun. We also discussed some fair steps to take when those norms are broken.

 This is where our "Coffee break" station came into play! A lot of the norms were focused on maintaining a classroom environment that is safe, inclusive, and respectful. We recognized that a lot of our negative behaviors are small and don't require serious punishments, but instead require a change in our mindset and focus. In order to achieve this change, we found some strategies to get ourselves back to an ideal state for learning.

So far, this has been SUPER successful in the classroom and we have seen several students choose to go to the coffee break area on their own! We hope that more students use it and that it continues to work for our students.