CCP: Episode 26 // Building Stronger Classroom Communities

Positive classroom communities can make or break your school year.

It’s that simple.

Inventing time in building a strong community in your classroom will serve you well all year. In this episode, I’m share how a positive classroom community can change your entire year (for the better), and how to do it! We’ll talk about simple ideas that work in ANY classroom as well as resources to help make it easy!

Highlights from the Episode

(Timestamps shown)

• The One VERY important thing that teachers often overlook when planning for back to school (3:50)

• Building a positive classroom community begins BEFORE the school year starts (5:22)

• Make sure your classroom is a positive place to be (7:38)

• Provide students with opportunities to work together toward a common goal (8:59)

• Celebrate Student Learning (10:49)

• Establish positive relationships with your students’ families (13:16)

• Find ways to support students in their extra-curricular activities (attending a sporting or musical events…etc..)

Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode

Get cheap printing (and your first month FREE) with the HP Instant Ink Program

9 Ways to Teach Students to be Kind

More Episodes in the Getting Your Year in Gear Teacher Summer Challenge Podcast Series:

Episode 22 - Classroom Decor & Design Made Easy

Episode 23 - Mastering Classroom Organization

Episode 24 - Curriculum Mapping & Planning Ahead During the Summer

Episode 25 - It’s time to Fine-Tuning Your Instruction with New Strategies and Best Practices

REVIEW & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CLASSROOM COMMUTE PODCAST

Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast and you’ll get notified each week when a new episode gets dropped! And - if you love what you hear, I’d be so honored if you took a quick moment to rate and review the podcast so that other awesome teachers can find the podcast!

Transcript

Episode 26: Building a Strong Classroom Community transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.

Episode 26: Building a Strong Classroom Community was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2020. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.

Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies, and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.

Before we jump into the show, I want to let you in on a little secret. In fact, it's the best kept teachers secret that I've come across in a long time. And I want everyone to know about it. For years, I would drive to my local print shop to have classroom decorations and resources that I created printed off in color. Not only did this cost me a lot of money. Fifty six cents a page, to be exact, but it was such a hassle and a waste of time to drive all the way over to the print shop, often on a weekly basis, and wait for my order to be complete.

That's why I was thrilled when I came across the HP Instant Ink Program. HP Instant Ink is the perfect membership for teachers who do a lot of printing in black and white or even color, and they want to be able to do so for only a few dollars each month. Using an Instant Ink approved printer, I got mine for under a hundred bucks, you can print your classroom resources right at home for as little as $2.99 A month. They have several plans to choose from to meet your printing needs. And the best part? Instant Ink keeps track of your printing ink levels and will ship you new ink BEFORE you run out so that you never go low on ink in the middle of a project. This program has been a lifesaver for me and has saved me so much time and money, so I couldn't keep it a secret any longer. Right now you can get a free month of Instant Ink to get started. Just go to classroomnook.com/instantink to get all the details. Happy printing.

Well, hey there. Welcome to another episode of The Classroom Commute Podcast. Again, I Rachael your host. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that wherever you are, it is sunny and you are having a wonderful summer so far.

And speaking of summer, we are almost done with our summer teacher challenge, getting your year in gear. For the past four weeks, we have focused on major planning themes when it comes to back to school planning. We have covered things like designing your classroom, getting your classroom organized and planning and prepping for long range plans to use throughout the school year. And last week we talked about incorporating some of the best instructional practices and strategies into your teaching this year and finally today, we're going to wrap up this challenge with talking about ways that you can build a positive classroom community with your students.

But before I get started with that, if you have not been doing the challenge with us because you maybe have just found this podcast or you're just tuning in after a little bit of a hiatus from ending the school year, no worries. You can still sign up for the challenge. It's a completely free challenge that I hosted with my friend Mary Beth from Brain Waves Instruction. And there is no time better than the presence if you are ready to get your school year in gear. Then make sure you sign up for the challenge. It's completely self paced so you can start whenever you're ready.You can get all the details at classroomnook.com/yearingear and I will get you set up and running with getting your year in gear.

All right. Today, we're going to talk about something that is really, really, really important when it comes to preparing for the school year. But it might be something that a lot of teachers overlook when they're planning for back to school. It's easy to forget about this one element of your back to school planning because you're so consumed with getting your classroom ready and making your long range plans and prepping those back to school activities and crafts that you're going to have your students do. But - this is one big thing that you are not going to want to skip focusing on when it comes to back to school planning -- and that is building a positive classroom community.

Now, more than ever, with everything that's gone on over the past few months, it is important that we work to establish positive classroom communities. And that may be a positive classroom community in your actual physical classroom or your virtual classroom (if you have to do some virtual teaching this year).

So as you're planning those back to school activities, don't forget to plan for how you're going to build a classroom community. And I'm going to help you out today with some strategies and some tips for doing just that. Everything that we're going to talk about today is going to be over at the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/26 where you can get all of the details and any of the resources that I mentioned in today's episode.

All right - Let's dive right in. Building a positive classroom community begins before the school year even starts. Yep. Don't wait till that first day of school to establish the first connections with your students and their families. In fact, I have several ways that I want to encourage you to establish connections before the school year even starts. These are simple, but powerful ways.

The first way is to just make a simple phone call. Touch base with each family. Ask them if they have any questions about your classroom or about the grade that you're teaching. Ask them if they have any individual concerns about their student or their child that they're sending into your classroom so that you can address any of those concerns before this school year even starts and you can get ahead of it.

Instead of a phone call, or in addition to a phone call, you can send a letter home to your students. A lot of teachers do this. They make one letter and they send it to all of their students. You might even write and little individual note, but you can make one main letter to send out to your class to introduce yourself, introduce your hobbies, tell them some things that they can look forward to in your classroom just to get them excited about being in your classroom.

And along the same lines, in addition to that letter that you send home about yourself, put in that note a stamped envelope so that they can write you a letter back and have it addressed to the school so that it goes right to your school mailbox. And then you can get to know your students a little bit as well.

If your students are physically returning to your classroom in the fall, then perhaps you can invite families to come in and take a class tour before the school year starts. Arrange for students to come in on a specific morning or afternoon and look around in your classroom. This will really help to ease any of the anxiety that maybe students are feeling about starting a new school year. You can see their faces. They can see yours. And it just helps to, again, establish that initial connection with the students and their families. This doesn't have to be a time where you have to formally teach anything or do anything like you might at open house. Just invite them into your classroom, have a look around. It could only be a few minutes, and that's all that it takes. So first and foremost, when building your class and community is to establish the connection before the school year starts.

Once your students are in the classroom, make sure that your classroom is a positive place to be. You should have positive messaging through out your classroom. This could include having quote posters throughout your classroom with positive messages on it. I actually have some positive, quote posters up in our Member's Resource Library that you can get for free. And you can do that at classroomnook.com/podcast/26 and I will give you the link to get those posters. But the idea is that you want to live and breathe positivity in your classroom with your students and quote posters are a great way to do that.

But of course it doesn't stop there. In addition to having the positive messaging throughout your classroom, you, yourself need to teach positivity in your classroom and teach kindness and growth mindset in your classroom. And this is all done intentionally. It's not something that we need to keep on the back burner. It's something that we need to put out in the forefront and teach explicitly to our students. I did an entire episode all about teaching kindness to your students with lots of tips and strategies to do that. And I will link to that episode in the show notes, but make sure that teaching kindness gets on your to do this this year because it is super essential to building a positive classroom community.

Another way to build positive classroom community is to encourage students to work together for a common goal. It could be something as simple as working together to earn a pajama day or extra recess or something like that. When students work together, they learn to encourage each other. They learn to understand that they have a part in their classroom and that it's their responsibility, along with everybody else's, to make sure that they are doing their part to be a positive member of their community. And you can use very simple things like a marble jar that students work together to fill up so that every time you see a positive behavior, you put marbles in the jar.

Or another thing that I like to do is mystery puzzles. To do this, you have a picture of something that represents their reward or their goal. For example, you might have a picture of a pizza slice if students are working towards earning a pizza party. And over top of the picture of the pizza slice, you put little Post-it notes that cover the entire picture. Then, every time you see positive behavior from a group of students or an individual student, you remove one of those Post-it notes off of the mystery picture and the picture of what they're going to be earning is revealed the more that they show positive behavior.

You can even put specific things on the Post-it note that you want to see happen in order to have that Post-it note removed. For example, on one Post-it you might write "gets a compliment while walking in the hallway." So, when a teacher compliments your class for walking positively and quietly and nicely down the hallway, you remove that Post-it note. And students get to see just a portion of what they're working towards together to earn. It's just a fun way to get students working together towards a common goal.

In addition to focusing on positive behavior and working together as a classroom, it's also important to celebrate student learning in order to build a positive class and community. This includes the little things that they do in their learning as well as the big things that they do. When a student finally has an "Aha!" moment, or they go up a reading level that they've been working on, or they've finished a writing piece that they've been working on for the past month. Those are the things that you want to really celebrate with your students.

And you want to celebrate them on an individual level as well as a whole class level, especially those students who struggle academically. The more you can celebrate their accomplishments, the more encouraged they're going to feel. And there are lots of ways that you can do this. Two of my favorites are, one, to have a walk the red carpet event. And this can be done as often as you want and it doesn't have to take any preparation. When I say "red carpet", you don't actually have to have a red carpet. You could get red butcher paper and lay that out. But essentially each week or each month, however often you're doing it, you choose several students that you want to highlight as having a "win" for that week or that month. And you have them, quote unquote, "walk the red carpet." You can play some fun music like that song "Celebrate", and you can have students walk across while you announce their accomplishment to the class. They can take a bow. And it's just really fun for students to be highlighted in that way and acknowledged in front of their classmates.

You can also do something simple like have students wear accomplishment necklaces. I loved doing this in my classroom because it's very simple to do and it has a strong impact on the students. So, for example, if you're working on having your students memorize their math facts for multiplication and you do those timed quizzes, then perhaps if they pass one of their quizzes, they can wear an accomplishment necklace that says something like, "I'm a math facts master". These are necklaces that you can reuse over and over. So create a set of generic necklaces and laminate them so that students can wear them for the day and feel extra special for that day. Other necklaces might include "My Writing Rocks" or "I Went Up a Reading Level" or "I rocked the test" or even something simple like, "My Teacher Thinks I'm Awesome." If you see a student that could just use a little boost, you could give them a necklace like that.

And finally, building a positive class community extends beyond your four walls in your classroom. In fact, it's just as important to establish positive relationships with your students families as it is with the students themselves. So it's important that we communicate regularly with our students families with positive messages as well. This can include sending a note home to your students to tell about something great that their child did in class, or making a quick phone call to check in with families or to tell them of something great that their child did in class. If we're only reaching out to families when there's a problem, we're doing it wrong. A positive community is just that. It's everybody involved in your students' life as it relates to your school and their home life.

And speaking of home life, here is a bonus tip: If your students are involved in sports or music or something outside of school, make a note to attend a recital or a sporting event or something that lets your student know that they are important to you and that they're worth celebrating and being a part of their life in and out of school.

All right. There you have it. My best tips for establishing a positive classroom community. And here they are one more time: The first tip is to establish connections before the school year starts. The second tip is to make your classroom a positive place to be. The third tip is to encourage students to work together for a common goal. The fourth tip is to celebrate learning, the big wins as well as the small wins. And finally, the fifth tip is to build a positive relationship with your students' families.

Remember, building a positive classroom communities should not be the last thing on your to do list when it comes to planning for back to school. In fact, it should be right at the top and just as important as everything else that you're planning for a new school year.

All right guys, make sure that you check out the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/26 for everything that we talked about today. If you have not yet signed up for the Getting Your Year in Gear free teachers summer challenge, make sure that you do that at classroomnook.com/yearingear. It will be the best decision that you made this summer in planning for your school year.

This episode wraps up our series on the Getting Your Year in Gear teacher summer challenge themes. If you missed any of the other themes on classroom design, organization, planning and preparing, and instructional strategies -- and all the good stuff, make sure you check out episodes 22, 23, 24 and 25 to get caught up, as well as sign up for that teacher summer challenge.

All right. Same time, same place next week. I'll see you then. Take care. Bye for now.

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