Classroom community is my thing. I consider it to be one of the most important goals I work on all year. This whole virtual learning and hybrid learning thing has tested my ability to continue to foster a strong Classroom Community, but I am determined to make it work!
If you’re looking for ideas for how to keep building that classroom community while staying socially distanced, here are 10 suggestions.
1 – Continue doing morning meeting or class circles with both remote and in-person students together to keep everyone “connected”.
2 – Incorporate student voice whenever possible by:
~having students type answers in the chat or use emojis to respond (if you’re having your in-person students logged in with remote students)
~putting students in breakout rooms (also good when everyone is logged in together)
~using Padlet as a way to post questions and see others’ responses (a great way to keep students connected without requiring in-person students to be in Google Meet all the time)
~incorporating FlipGrid and allowing students to view and comment on each others’ videos (another way to keep students connected).
3 – Use Picture of the Day or Question of the Day to get kids talking and interacting. I love Jen Jones Picture of the Day on Teachers Pay Teachers. Here’s a link to a great morning whiteboard messages product on Teachers Pay Teachers. I like to post the questions on a Padlet wall and allow students to respond, add a selfie, or add a gif (school-appropriate, of course).
4 – One thing that students have enjoyed virtually is the chance to be on the meet and just talk to each other about whatever. I was available, but usually kept my camera and microphone off so I could monitor but not “hover.” I can continue to offer that for my remote students, but I also plan to let my in-person kids just talk for a few minutes every day. (This might be a good activity for when I’m cleaning tables several times a day.)
5 – Games – you can never go wrong with games. The online platforms of Quizizz, Kahoot, Quizlet (especially Quizlet Live), Blooket, Factile and Gimkit are great. Here’s a link to my post about other games to play in Google Meet or Zoom.
6 – I love giving kids small containers of Play-Doh and asking them to use it to respond to various prompts. You can use prompts like “your favorite food” or “your favorite animal” or “something you love to do”. You can also use it to make representations of other academic concepts, like a cell structure in science or something that represents a character in language arts. Kids are great about suggesting ideas for Play-Doh building as well.
7 – Watch a TED talk together. Here’s a link to 17 TED talks for kids. If you teach upper elementary or middle school, another great TED talk to share and discuss is “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
8 – Designate one day a week for school (or classroom) spirit day. It could be anything that works for you: hat day, wear your favorite sports team clothes/colors, bring a stuffed animal to school day, or wear a school t-shirt or school colors.
9 – Using Jamboard for games or for formative assessment is a great way to connect your in-person students and your remote students. This post by Kris Szajner on Ditch That Textbook has some great ideas and includes Jamboard templates!
10 – If your school requires students to be silent while eating (since masks are off), consider listening to a podcast together. Here are some good ones to try:
~Wow in the World
~Brains On! Science Podcast for Kids
~But Why – a Podcast for Curious Kids
~KidNuz
~Radiolab for Kids
~Six Minute podcast.
Another suggestion would be to watch videos. Here are some fun options:
~Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street (on Amazon)
~Just Add Magic (on Amazon)
~Annedroids (on Amazon)
~The Kicks (on Amazon)
~Liberty’s Kids (on YouTube)
~The Inbestigators (on Netflix)
How do you continue to build classroom community? I’d love to hear your ideas!
