Social and Emotional Learning
The Responsive Classroom approach to teaching emphasizes academic, social, and emotional growth in a strong school community. Here at PS 340, we believe that how children learn is as important as what they learn, and that academic success is tied to building social-emotional competencies. To be successful academically and socially, children need to learn a set of social and emotional skills: cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.
Practices include:
- Morning Meeting—Everyone in the classroom gathers in a circle for twenty to thirty minutes at the beginning of each school day and proceeds through four sequential components: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message, designed to teach important skills.
- Establishing and practicing useful routines— to help students reach learning goals.
- Use of energizers—Short, playful, whole-group activities that are used as breaks in lessons.
- Quiet Time - A brief, purposeful and relaxed time of transition that takes place after lunch and recess, before the rest of the school day continues.
