Multimedia

Creating a Caring Community of Learners: Kimberly and Vanessa’s 1st/2nd Grade Classroom

Teacher and elementary students practicing mindfulness techniques
Kimberly Fritschy and Vanessa Keller
December 2017 | The High Quality Learning Project
Teacher and elementary students practicing mindfulness techniques

This video from the High Quality Early Learning Project documents the practices and processes that support the social and emotional learning of children in a 1st/2nd grade ICT (integrated collaborative teaching) classroom. Teachers from a public school in New York City’s Lower East Side explain how they create a caring community by setting up classroom routines and rules, helping the children get to know each other, creating habits of respect, and using tools of mindfulness, gratefulness, and active listening to support the children’s learning and development. Additionally, this video showcases how play, active learning, trips, and projects are essentials to the academic learning of young children. The video is accompanied by a set of guiding questions for discussion as well as five other video clips about mindfulness and emotional regulation, the Teddy Bear Curriculum, snack time, learning through play, and the Billion Oyster Project.

Program and Curricular Materials