Teamwork and collaboration! These are important parts of raising a 21st-century learner in the classroom, yet many students do not entirely understand what this it. I stress the importance of teamwork and collaboration throughout the year, but I take time in the beginning of the year to help students truly understand what it means. Throwing ... Read More about How to introduce collaboration to your elementary students
Through my research on and 15 years of practice with collaboration in the classroom, I’ve been working towards taking this HUGE concept of collaborative learning and simplifying it for easy application in EVERY classroom. Here’s what I’ve discovered
Collaborative tasks are a great way to help students build relationships, foster leadership skills, develop teamwork traits and have fun.
My principal recently asked me to attend a mentor training and I was thrilled to go! I remember thinking back on my first year teaching...I often felt confused and overwhelmed. I kept thinking how nic
Through my research on and 15 years of practice with collaboration in the classroom, I’ve been working towards taking this HUGE concept of collaborative learning and simplifying it for easy application in EVERY classroom. Here’s what I’ve discovered
Start the school year with these 11 fun classroom community activities to help build social-emotional skills and positive relationships!
Read about four different ways you can engage your upper elementary students with the content while working on their listening and speaking skills. These collaborative activities will help students learn about each other, build classroom community, and master their collaboration skills.
Have you tried using Collaborative Posters in the Classroom? Collaborative posters are a fantastic way to build a culture of teamwork and unity in your
Looking for new community building ideas for the elementary classroom? These activities work any time in the school year and are a big hit!
Long gone are the days where desks are lined up in perfect rows, classrooms are silent, and teachers lecture for the entire class period. Today’s classrooms are placing more emphasis on collaborative learning—giving students opportunities...
Here are eight great games, activities and tech tools to help your students learn to collaborate in the classroom. Build your student community!
Cooperative learning. Find out what it's all about and get some great resources to help you use this strategy well in your classroom.
Looking for new community building ideas for the elementary classroom? These activities work any time in the school year and are a big hit!
I love to see my students work together! So I use a Whole Class Rewards system where students do that. This is a whole class rewards system that teachers...
These teamwork activities were designed to foster collaboration and cooperation among your students. This pack is filled with quick, simple, engaging and collaborative learning activities that promote teamwork skills in a fun and interactive way. With 17 different year-round activities to choose from (& NOW UPDATED with 10 more Fall-themed activities! - more to come!*), this pack provides a wide variety of options suitable for students aged 7-12. Each activity includes a brief description, step-by-step instructions, a materials list, possible variations, and additional ideas or information to help you successfully implement the activities. Also included is a Google Slides presentation that provides an overview of all the activities. *This product is currently a GROWING BUNDLE. I will be periodically adding new activities throughout the school year that correlate with different seasons and U.S. holidays. Note: The Google Slides presentation is accessible via the provided link and requires an internet connection and a device with Google Slides capabilities. Follow my TPT store to get notified of new products! I offer 50% off for the first 48 hours. - Follow Me Here You can also follow me on social media --> @atrailblazingteacher I am not affiliated or associated with Google, nor do they endorse this resource. Don't forget to leave feedback! :) TPT offers credits that can be applied to future purchases! To earn credits, simply rate and comment on the product. This product is for personal use in a single classroom only. No part of this download may be copied, sold, distributed, or edited without the permission of the author. Additional licenses may be purchased from my TPT store. Please do not post this document online; however, feel free to blog or post on social media about the use of this product as long as you credit back to my TPT store with a link.
Cooperative learning. Find out what it's all about and get some great resources to help you use this strategy well in your classroom.
Collaborative conversations in the classroom can be characterized as listening and speaking strategies in which students participate in discussions with
Visit the post for more.
If you don’t already know by now, I am quite a fan of collaborative learning. Maybe fan isn’t quite the right term, obsessed may be more accurate? Either way, I am passionate about implementing collaborative learning into the fiber of my classroom and advocating for and equipping other teachers to u
Classroom community building activities and free ideas and lesson plans to kick off the school year or implement at any time.
3 examples of classroom management strategies to help you regain control of your classroom through effective behavior management.
Have you ever thought about encouraging colleagues to try classroom transformations? This article will explain how to convince them!
If you are looking for Collaborative Poster Activity creations for your elementary students, check out these cute and functional ones!
If you’ve been reading a lot of my collaboration posts and feeling like you don’t know how to get started and feeling overwhelmed by the thought of creating a collaborative project from scratch, I am here to tell you there is an easier way!
Stop! Collaborate and Learn! Do you have that Vanilla Ice song stuck in your head now? Well all singing aside, let's talk collaboration. Collaboration is such
Goal Setting - This 4th grade teacher uses post it notes to remind children of their goals upon entering the classroom. I love that her method to this has
A daily closing circle will build classroom community. Students will maintain positive relationships while collaborating and having fun.
This resource includes labels for students working in a group. The labels can be used on student desks or passed out at random for group work around the room. When you are ready to print or edit your labels, consider the number of students in your classroom. The ways students can be paired up with these labels: •Group 1, Group 2, etc •All Captains, Recorders, etc •All number 1’s, 2’s, etc •B’s, discuss with an A (or vice versa) •All A’s or All B’s •Compound food option- find your peanut-butter partner. Students pair up with their food partner. This one gets a little tricky when there are odd numbers in the classroom. It is okay, to repeat one or two if you need a group of 3. For examples, in the non editable set, it allows for 25 students. I repeated the pan in pancake twice so that everyone has someone to discuss with. In the non editable version number 21-24 pair with each other, so you will not have to change anything if you have 20 or less students.
Are your students stuck in an individualistic mindset? Integrate collaborative posters into your classroom to help students learn a valuabl life skill.
If you don’t already know by now, I am quite a fan of collaborative learning. Maybe fan isn’t quite the right term, obsessed may be more accurate? Either way, I am passionate about implementing collaborative learning into the fiber of my classroom and advocating for and equipping other teachers to u
7 simple ways to build community in your classroom so students are connected and engaged.
Discover new classroom ideas for classroom management, decor, organization, storage, desk layouts, fun ideas and more!
Wanna check out our school-wide collaborative? All the details can be found here:...
This Project Based Learning activity allows your students to critically think about what would be the best learning environment for them.
One thing that I never did much of until this year was focus on building a strong classroom community. I felt like I had good relationships with my students, but I realized I wasn’t very good at fostering my students’ relationships with their peers. How important that is! If students aren’t valuing and respecting each other, then it can be really hard to get much accomplished during the day. So this year, after learning more about Responsive Classroom and building classroom community, I decided to put that at the center of my planning. Allowing time for my students to interact with each other and encourage each other during class was a priority for me. I took some aspects of the Responsive Classroom approach and adapted them for my classroom. I also took some things I’ve seen or heard about from other teachers whom I admire and adapted those ideas for my classroom as well. NONE of the following ideas are my own brain child; I am pretty much the queen of taking others’ ideas and changing them to fit my needs. That being said, I wanted to share the different ways that I help build a strong classroom community in hopes that it will inspire you to do the same. I also HIGHLY recommend researching Responsive Classroom and their approach to building classroom community. It was super eye-opening for me! The only reason I am not 100% implementing Responsive Classroom is because it was just too much for me to possibly take on in one year. However, I think adding a few aspects at a time is enough to make a difference and still be manageable. Building Classroom Community Monday Meeting This is adapted from the Responsive Classroom’s Morning Meeting. Having a meeting EVERY morning was overwhelming to me and something I’m not sure I have the time for at this point; but I did feel a regular class meeting would be instrumental in building that strong classroom community. The Responsive Classroom approach has 4 different components to the meeting: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message and is a daily 15-20 minute meeting to start the day. In my class, I do my meeting on Monday mornings. I create a short PowerPoint to go with it. First, I share a quick summary of my week and my favorite part, because I feel it is important for students to be included in our life outside of school. Second, I do a question of the week. This is sometimes an easy, get-to-know-you question that most students will answer. Other times it focuses on a trait or character quality I want to talk about – questions like “How can you persevere today?” or “Tell about a time when someone helped you.” I let as many students as want to answer. Third, I do a student share time. I have a schedule set and 5 students share each Monday. I have 20 students so each student gets to go about once per month. Lastly, I use this time for any important announcements for the week. It was important to me that students get the opportunity to stand up in front of their classmates, full attention on them, and talk about literally whatever they want. I have kids talk about something fun they did, or they bring in items for show and tell, or they tell about something they’re looking forward to. I don’t provide any guidelines for this time (other than keeping it under 2 minutes and 2nd grade appropriate). Students who are not speaking are to listen attentively, and we clap when the sharer is done. This is my students’ favorite part of the week! Quote of the Month On the first Monday of each month, I skip my question of the week and we talk about our Quote of the Month instead. I like to choose quotes that encourage a growth mindset or focus on another quality that I think is important. I choose the quote each month and display it on my letter board. Then, on the first Monday of the month, we talk about it during Monday Meeting. We read the quote together, I explain any words they may not know, and then I ask them what they think it means. I love hearing their ideas! Seriously, 2nd graders can be pretty insightful. After hearing their thoughts on the quote, I proceed to tell them what it means to me and what that means for our classroom. I refer to the quote often throughout the month but otherwise don’t do anything with it. I think it would be fun to once a month reward students who really showcased the qualities talked about in the quote, but I have not done that. This idea is adapted from the Keep the Quote trend. I only do once a month because it’s hard for me to keep up with it weekly, but Keep the Quote is another great alternative to this community building strategy. Table Points I love doing group work in my class, but unfortunately with the way our curriculum is set up, it doesn’t lend itself very well to doing group work often. So, I provide students opportunities to work together in a different way – table points. This is super casual. Each table has a number (1-5) and I keep a tally on a chart I made on my board. Anytime I think an entire table has done a great job working quietly, cleaning up, keeping their desk neat, working together well, etc. I give them a table point. Tables accumulate points throughout the week, and the table that has the most points at the end of the day Friday wins! The winning table gets to keep the VIP Caddy at their table the following week in place of their regular caddy. In the VIP Caddy I keep fun pencils, markers, pens, and pretty-colored dry erase markers. They LOVE it! I switch up their seating once per quarter so they have opportunities to work with different students. I love watching them help each other and encourage each other so they can earn table points. Closing Circle This is also taken from the Responsive Classroom. I try to end each day with a closing circle. My students absolutely love this time of day and are sad when we don’t get to do it (because of time). It takes only about 10 minutes! After cleaning up and getting ready to go, I have all students come to my gathering area and we sit in a circle. Then we go around the circle and answer a quick question (similar to our question of the day, but everyone gets to answer). This could be a simple “What was your favorite thing that happened today?” or a more thought-provoking “What challenged you today and what did you learn from it?” The point is, whatever the question, you are ending the day on a POSITIVE note. So, stay away from questions like, “What did you NOT like about today?” It can be hard to come up with questions to ask, so I created this FREE resource to help you out! Simply print, cut, and keep on a binder ring near your gathering area. Then, if you’re stuck, you can just grab these cards and find a question! These cards are available in my TpT store, or you can click the link below to download now. How do you build a strong classroom community? Share your ideas by commenting below!
Cooperative learning is an excellent way to put students in charge of their own learning! Check out these 10 different activities for your classroom!
We all know it is natural for the majority of students to interrupt while they’re having conversations. They want to be heard, and they want to ensure their friends and peers affirm their own point of view. SO THEY SAY THEIR OPINION AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE OVER ALL THE OTHER STUDENTS AT THEIR
If you’re teaching a split class (multi-grade or combined class) and need advice on classroom management and organization, you’ve come to the right place! You’ll find practical tips from teachers who have taught in multi-level classrooms and combined classes at all different grade levels. Tips and tricks from teachers in combined class schools I’ve invited … Continued
Teamwork in the classroom is essential in order to have a high functioning and welcoming environment for students. Check out three easy ways to build teamwork with your students.
Through my research on and 15 years of practice with collaboration in the classroom, I’ve been working towards taking this HUGE concept of collaborative learning and simplifying it for easy application in EVERY classroom. Here’s what I’ve discovered
Read about four different ways you can engage your upper elementary students with the content while working on their listening and speaking skills. These collaborative activities will help students learn about each other, build classroom community, and master their collaboration skills.
