Sound Discipline is honoring Wade King Elementary School in Bellingham, Washington as our May Champion, for their school-wide approach to teaching self-regulation skills. Ms. Johnson, the Principal, recently made a video for parents that highlighted their Monday Morning Meeting. Every week starts with a schoolwide Monday Morning Meeting, where staff and students share leadership roles.

Ms. Zoba, a 4^th grade teacher, leads the school in learning self-regulation strategies and closes the meeting with a Mindful Moment where everyone listens to the sound of a singing bowl. All students learn self-regulation strategies in their classrooms, too. Ms. Wermus’ 1^st grade class listens to Mind Yeti (mindyeti.com) meditations right after lunch. This helps them regulate through what is traditionally a challenging transition for young people. All classrooms, including Chinese, Music and PE, have calming corners, where students can take a break and regulate until they are able to re-focus with their class. A group of students helped Ms. Herda, Dean of Students, design a motor path in their hallway. They also made a video showing other students how to use it. This video ( https://wade-king-howard.wistia.com/medias/p18bekavab ) was used to introduce the path in a Monday Morning Meeting.

The team at Wade King is continuing to reflect and try new solutions as they learn more about what students need to learn self-regulation and executive functioning skills across multiple levels of support. They’ve recently introduced Green Calming Cards (most icons are from Noun Project, an online subscription for educators); and the Social and Emotional Learning Team/Data Team is piloting a new Reflection Sheet. It incorporates self-awareness and regulation practices, along with repair. Thank you, Wade King, for all that you are doing to help your students build skills, and thank you for sharing your ideas with all of us!