How to Incorporate Heart-Centered Teaching in Five Steps
You want to be the best teacher you can be for your students.
You care about your students and you want them to succeed in your classroom and in their personal lives.
You want to create a warm, welcoming classroom environment that your students look forward to coming to every day.
You may have heard me talk about heart-centered teaching before but may not really know what that means or how to practically incorporate it into your classroom.
Well you’ve come to the right place! I have put together five steps that are going to get you on the right track toward your heart-centered classroom. I also have included multiple links to other resources I have and blog posts I have written, so be sure to check those out to get even more advice, tips, and lessons on being the best heart-centered teacher you can be.
Ready? Let’s go!
Step #1: Establish Classroom Goals and Identities
Before you get started, it’s important to reflect on the goals you have for your classroom.
Establishing classroom goals and identities will help in fostering an environment where both academic achievement and emotional growth are prioritized.
To be sure your goals align with heart-centered teaching, make sure you are clear on what being a heart-centered teacher entails. I have a blog post where I share what heart-centered teaching really is. How are you supposed to practice it if you don’t have a well-rounded understanding of what it is, right?
You can read that blog here >> What is Heart-Centered Teaching?
Step #2: Make Everyone Feel Safe with Emotional Regulation Tools and Clear Coping Skill Options
An excerpt from one of my previous blogs, Three Key Social-Emotional Learning Skills to Teach Kindergarteners says this about social-emotional learning:
“As you probably know quite well, Kindergarteners also have a lot of big feelings. As children’s brains grow and develop, they have access to a wide range of emotions – many of which are completely foreign or new to them. Directly teaching SEL gives young learners important words they need to understand and explain their own feelings. When they can identify their emotions, children are more likely to be able to manage them.”
A key part of a heart-centered classroom is incorporating and valuing the teaching of SEL skills, tools, and language.
Social-emotional learning skills will set your students up for success. You may find your students are more engaged in academic lessons and follow classroom procedures better the more time you spend focusing on SEL.
Again, be sure to read my blog Three Key Social-Emotional Learning Skills to Teach Kindergarteners as it will walk you through how to practically teach SEL skills and dive deeper into why it is so important for your students.
Step #3: Create Routines and Classroom Procedures
Are you starting to get excited? I hope so. We’re just about there.
You may be feeling a bit overwhelmed, and that’s perfectly normal. Any time you’re trying something new, it takes time to process it. Just be patient and stick with it. This is all part of the heart-centered teaching journey.
Next, understand the importance of classroom routines, procedures, and consistency in these practices.
In my blog post, 5 Common Classroom Management Mistakes, the number 1 mistake teachers make is inconsistency.
In that blog I put it this way,
“Consistency in the classroom is essentially the glue that binds a positive and effective learning environment together. As a teacher, being consistent in your approach to rules, expectations, and consequences establishes a reliable framework that students can understand and rely upon. This reliability, in turn, contributes significantly to several crucial aspects of the educational experience.”
Your classroom needs a set of established routines and procedures for not only you to feel organized, but for your students to feel good about the daily flows of your classroom environment. When there are clear set boundaries, everyone understands what is expected of them. This minimizes feelings of anxiety and overwhelm for both the teacher and students.
Step #4: Connect through Common Language
We’re just about done. There are two more steps.
Talking to children is very different from talking to adults.
You may find it hard to connect with your students if you don’t take the time to learn how to communicate well with them.
A simple thing you can do is to get on their level when they’re speaking – either by bending down, sitting next to them, or sitting on the carpet all together.
Listening to their stories (yes, even when they’re long-winded and confusing!) and giving meaningful feedback that shows you heard what they said goes a long way.
Check out my blog 5 Top Reasons Teachers Fail to Connect with Their Students to dive deeper into learning how to connect with your students. It’s more important than you would think!
Step #5: Use Classroom Activities, Chants and Callbacks to Build Common Language
This is the last step. Get ready to celebrate!
Incorporating heart-centered teaching involves fostering a dynamic and engaging classroom environment where students feel connected and empowered.
Community builders are a great way to include your students in the process of building a connected community.
Classroom activities, as well as songs and chants, are a great way to nurture teamwork and collaboration. They will also help to solidify the bonds students are making within your classroom amongst each other.
These practices not only promote academic achievement but also nurture social-emotional development, making learning a truly enriching and transformative journey for all involved.
My blog, How to Convert Your Class from Chaos to Calm with Classroom Management, goes into depth about the importance of these activities and how to obtain that calm and connected classroom we all want to experience!
Bonus! Join The Heart-Centered Classroom Instructional Toolkits waitlist today!
I created my Heart-Centered Toolkits to walk you through exactly how to have a heart-centered classroom because so many teachers (including myself at one point!) need support and direction when creating a safe and supportive heart-centered classroom. If you want to learn more about it, click here!
Lead your class with confidence and joy, showing up as the teacher you were meant to be each and every day. The Heart-Centered Method gives you all the strategies, language, tools, and support you need to create the classroom environment you’ve always dreamed of.
Adopting a heart-centered approach completely transformed my classroom behaviors, and I’m confident it will do the same for you.
Key Takeaways
Congratulations! You just learned how to get started in your journey of creating a heart-centered classroom. Follow the steps above to dip your toes into the world of heart-centered teaching - I know you will not regret it!
I’ve given you some of my best tips, tools, and techniques to help ensure your success. Just knowing them isn’t enough, though. It’s time to act and get the results you’ve been dreaming about!
Struggling with behavior in your classroom?
My downloadable Behavior bootcamp mini-series will help you set clear expectations surrounding behavior to provide a foundation for a positive, consistent, heart-centered learning environment.
Included in this pack are:
- 7 one pager mini-lessons on each core behavior
- 7 activities that help reinforce the core behavior being taught
>>> Click here to download my FREE Back to Basics Behavior Bootcamp now
P.S. Are you an elementary teacher struggling with classroom management this time of year?
Click here to sign up for my FREE training: the How to Survive the Rest of the School Year masterclass happening on Tuesday, March 5th @ 8PM EST.
You'll learn the 5 keys to the Heart-Centered Classroom and strategies to help you get through the rest of the school year feeling light and fulfilled (not burned out and overwhelmed)!
