Social Emotional Learning

Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) is a process to create a safe, positive and productive learning environment for all students.

PBIS is an evidence-based three-tiered framework that improves and integrates our system and practices that affect student outcomes every day. PBIS creates schools where all students succeed.

Mount. Carbon Elementary students strive to be:

• Safe
• Respectful
• Responsible

Positive feedback occurs in classrooms and throughout the building to let students know that we see how amazing they are and how hard they are working every day to model these behavior expectations!

In each area of the school, students will see posters (drawn by Mt. Carbon’s talented art students) that articulate our behavior expectations.

Mount Carbon Behavior Matrix

The feedback meets these six conditions: 

• Specific
• Positive
• Relevant
• Immediate
• Sincere
• Frequent

Five-step PBIS method of instruction: 

• Establish it:
  • Three to five expectations
  • How do you want your students to behave?
• Define it:
  • Positively stated
  • Observable
  • Measurable
  • Relevant
• Post it:
  • Visual
  • Accessible
• Teach it
  • Model it (examples and non-examples)
  • Prompt it
  • Re-teach it
• Reinforce it
  • Provide feedback regularly

Follow these practices at home:

• A core principle of PBIS that you can use at home is the 5:1 rule. For every corrective statement made, provide five positive statements or praises of your child's behavior. 
• Use your school’s behavior expectations to reinforce student behavior at home.
• Talk to your student about what these behavior expectations look like at home and in the community.
• Watch Safe, Respectful Responsible to see these behaviors in action. 

• Occur weekly in the classroom
• Develop connection and a sense of belonging
  • Start by responding to a discussion question where everyone participates and every voice is heard and recognized

•  
• Occur as needed in classrooms
• Address incidents that may cause harm 
  • Bullying, playground conflict or unsafe behavior
  • Response to a change in the community (new student or a student’s last day)
•  

• Talk to an individual or small group about an issue
• Relate to a student-teacher conflict,
  • Habitual tardiness, etc.
• Use four questions:
  • What happened? 
  • Who did it affect? 
  • What might you have done differently?
  • What is a solution so it doesn’t happen again?
• Reflect on the impact of the behavior

•  
• Fact-finding review of the four questions with each individual in conflict
• Done before to determine whether to put them together in a formal restorative practice conference
•  

•  
• Conference with two people in conflict
• Reintegrate a student who has been suspended 
• Results in a signed, mutually agreeable and student-generated solution 
•  

Use the four restorative practice questions to help your student problem-solve through a conflict at home. 

• What happened?
• What are the effects?
• What responsibility can you take?
• What are the solutions?

Take turns answering relationship-building questions around the dinner table. Use these restorative practice questions to prompt discussion.

Check out these additional resources:

• Gain a deeper understanding of restorative practices with this parent handout.
• Check out this district resource on Restorative Practices at Home.

• Additional information and resources to support strong emotions in students:
  • All emotions are okay; all behaviors are not.
  • We teach students that our brain and body work together.
  • To regulate our body and calm our brain, we can use deep breaths, counting and positive self-talk.

Let’s breathe!

When we breathe, our brain and body work together to make us feel calm, relaxed and settled. Click on the blue links to practice your breathing:

• Pufferfish Breathing
• Bring It Down
• Dandelion Breathing
• Belly Breathing
• In and Out
• Take Five Breathing
• Why Do We Lose Control of Our Emotions?
• Brain & amygdala hand model explains how thoughts & emotions fuel anxiety
• Sesame Street: Me Want It (But Me Wait)

Red flags

Red flags warn our bodies that we may be facing a problem or feeling strong emotions. By understanding the red flags in our bodies, we can better prevent problems and calm our bodies down.

Common red flags:

• Pounding heart
• Butterflies in stomach
• Face on fire
• Tight fists
• Fast breathing
• Clenched jaw

• Anxiety Newsletter-families
• What is normal stress?
• Eight ways anxiety shows up as something else
• Anxiety blog
• Students health relax center
• Five Things I Wish People Knew About My Anxiety
• Test anxiety

Types of movement

• Body breaks: 
  • Quick bursts of movement that help you recenter and focus
• Incorporated movement:
  •  Small ways movements are added into an activity
• Big body play:
  • Rough and tumble, physical, big play
• Organized movement games:
  •  Simon Says, sports, PE
• Movement supports:
  •  fidgets, wobble seats, balance boards, yoga balls

• Printable executive functioning resources
• Homework tips
• Top 10 Homework Tips
• Homework Success
• Colorado Department of Education family resources
• Secrets of the Organized Student
• 12 Ways to Develop Organization Skills
• Activities Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills