Community Building is creating an environment where students are given the opportunity to gain some insight on their peers. Many students will learn that they may share common interests through the administration of community building activities. Every classroom must create an environment that makes every student feel safe and valued. Community building activities are a way to create this type of environment in any classroom. These activities also create a sense of community among students and teachers.
Friendly FridaysIn any classroom, Fridays can be tough. However, this activity of "Friendly Fridays" can be used each week to brighten up the end of the week. Students pick a classmate’s name from the popsicle stick jar. Keeping the name a secret, they create a friendly, unique note or card to give to the classmate. At the end of the time, the teacher collects the creations, checks them over quickly, and then ceremonially distribute them. Students are motivated to do quality work in this fun, positive activity.
Student JobsAt the start of each week, all students will be assigned to a job. These jobs will be rotated each week to allow for students to preform each job at least once. By creating classroom jobs, students will feel valued, worthy, and important to the classroom. Jobs will be posted at the front of the classroom for all students to see. It is important to assign "substitutes" for each job, in case a student is absent. If you have more students than jobs, you can project next weeks jobs for those students without jobs to see. Here are a list of jobs within the classroom: Line Leader, Paper Passer, Teachers Helper, Mail Carrier, Classroom Cleaner, Lunch Count Director, Pencil Sharpener, etc.
|
Birthday Line UpThis activity is a great way to start off your school year with students working together as a team. The objective is to have students line up in order of their birthdays—January 1st through December 31st. To do this, they will need to know the order in which the months fall as well as their own birthday. They will also need to talk with one another in order to figure out who goes in front of whom. To make it super challenging, tell them they must do it without speaking at all, only using hand signals.
Classroom ContractOne of the first activities I plan to do within my classroom is create a classroom contract with my students. It is important that students and teacher create this together, as students should have a say in how they want their classroom to run. To create this contract, students will be asked these four questions:
1. How do you like to be treated by others? 2. How do you want to be treated by me (teacher)? 3. How do we (teachers) want to be treated by students? 4. How do you want to be treated when in conflict? After students answer these questions, we will create this contract as a class using anchor chart paper. This contract should be signed by all students and teachers. |
Hot SeatThis fun game is a lot like the game show Password. Split your class into two teams and have them sit together in teams facing the white board or chalk board. Then take an empty chair—one for each team—and put it at the front of the class, facing the team members. These chairs are the “hot seats.” Choose one volunteer from each team to come up and sit in the “hot seat,” facing their teammates with their back to the board. Prepare a list of vocabulary words to use for the game. Choose one and write it clearly on the board. Each team will take turns trying to get their teammate in the hot seat to guess the word, using synonyms, antonyms, definitions, etc. Make sure team members work together so that each member has a chance to provide clues. The student in the hot seat listens to their teammates and tries to guess the word. The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team. Once the word is successfully guessed, a new student from each team sits in the hot seat, and a new round begins with a different word.
Zone CornersZONE Corners is a great activity to get the students up and moving around, but they are also learning the skills to be able to put how they may feel into words. Many students struggle with expressing their feelings verbally, so this activity will give them practice. Every student will get to observe that their peers may feel differently in the same situation, but there are reasons to that. Click on the link to learn more about ZONE Corners
|
Pretzel, UnpretzelDivide your class in half and have each group choose one pretzel maker and two unpretzelers. Direct the unpretzelers to turn their backs. Have the rest of the students in each group form a circle and hold hands. Now, have the pretzel maker direct the students (with words only) to twist around, step over, and duck under each other’s arms to form a human pretzel. Once they are sufficiently twisted, call the unpretzelers over and have them try to direct the students (with words only) in order to de-tangle them. Students cannot drop their hands at any time. The first team that successfully unpretzels their group wins.
60 second Appreciation, Apology, or Aha
This is a quick community building activity to reflect on the day. Students get in a circle and voice either an appreciation, something that they appreciated about a classmate, teacher, or anything in the day, an apology, something they were sorry about doing during the day, or an Aha which is something that they realized that they didn’t before they came into class. This is a quick activity that requires only a few volunteers.
|
Turn and TalkThis is a community building exercise in which students can share what they are thinking about a guided question the teacher asks them with their seat neighbors. With this, students can teach themselves and the teacher gets the opportunity to formatively assess student knowledge on any given topic. It may also be a good idea to have students sit next to someone else during the class period to get new perspectives.
|
Mingle MingleThis activity is good for encouraging kids to mix it up. Students mill about the room saying, in a quiet voice, “Mingle, mingle, mingle.” Then, the teacher calls out a group size, for example, groups of three. Students must break into groups of that size. The goal is to form different groups of individuals every time. If a person tries to join a group with whom they have already partnered, they must find a different group. After a few rounds, the process may take a bit of rearranging.
|