After implementing the Responsive Classroom approach into their elementary classrooms throughout the school year, teachers at Alden-Conger School in Alden MN were eager to celebrate their success by adding a dramatic, artistic, community-building flourish to their Responsive Classroom work. Staff members decided to use the five social skills identified in the approach, cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control (CARES), as the theme for their creative spring program for students and their families in grades K-3. Written by the elementary staff, the program was titled “A-C (Alden-Conger) CARES” and reinforced what the students had been learning all year long.

The program began with students holding up the CARES letters. While one student held a letter high, an accompanying student exuberantly de¬scribed what the letter stands for:

“C is for Cooperation,” one student exclaimed. “A is for Assertion,” another countered. “R is for Responsibility,” a third said. “E is for Empathy,” the fourth pronounced. “S if for Self-control,” the final student concluded.

Following this presentation, the audience of educators and learners sang a song called “Yes and No,” revealing that students and teachers at A-C take CARES to heart.

At the end of the “Yes and No” song, the gathered classes held their daily Morning Meeting, beginning with a greeting.

Then the presentation moved on to a skit based upon a familiar story: two alien characters, Thinga and MaJigga from the planet Smigga, land their spaceship at the school. These two characters had a lot to learn about caring social behavior, but, fortunately, the students at Alden-Conger are able to teach them the skills that they have been working on during morning meetings and throughout the school day. They focus on cooperation, making good choices, being kind, playing fair, and thinking before acting.

Students in the audience participated in the alien-landing drama by singing songs, engaging in physical-education activities, and cheering in unison. By the program’s end, the aliens, along with the entire audience, have learned many valuable lessons. To end the drama, MaJigga expresses the aliens’ appreciation:

We’ve learned a lot and we’re thankful we came. We have to leave you now– we will never be the same. We’ll go back to Smigga and teach our friends Caring for others should never end!

At the play’s closing, the student playing the part of the teacher, Mrs. Knight, advised her class to think about the things they had spoken, sung, and taught that day:

C means Cooperate and play fair and you will be on your way. A means be Assertive and say “please” when¬ever you can. R means be Responsible it’s—always a good plan! E means have Empathy and be kind—you’ll be your friends’ star. S means keep your Self-control, and think twice and you will go far!

The students showed the audience, along with their new alien friends, what it means to be part of Alden-Conger, where everyone CARES!

Linnea Petersen is the Elementary Dean of Students at Alden-Conger Elementary School in Alden MN. Lisa Boland Blake is a Responsive Classroom consultant for Origins.

This article first appeared in Origins: A Newsletter for Elementary Educators, Winter 2009