Asaiutui: Back to School Activities - Team Building with Students

It's that time of year again - back to school we go! You only get one chance the first few days of school to establish rules, routines, and a teamwork environment. Today, we are going to look at team building. Why is it important? How do we do it?

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Why is team building important?
Team building is very important if you wish to get the very best out of each and every student. A positive classroom environment increases students' success in many areas! It increases student motivation which directly increases productivity.

How can I build team work in my classroom?

1. Encourage and value input from your students. Provide opportunities for the students to talk and share thoughts and opinions. What percent of classroom time is spent with the teacher talking? What percent of the classroom time is spent with students talking? The higher the percent of students talking (on topic and on task), increases team work.

Here are some activities to obtain input from your students during the first few days of school:

Get to know your students with this All About Me interactive notebook activity. Allow them to share verbally with the class information about themselves.

This How Well Do You Know Me? Name Game encourages communication by having students guess information about their partners. It makes a wonderful icebreaker activity!

Gather input and show they are valued with this Words of Wisdom interactive bulletin board activity. Students will give advice to their classmates for a "sweet" new year!

More back to school activities may be found HERE.

2. Establish classroom rules and routines with INPUT from your students. Students are more likely to follow rules and routines when they have something invested in them. Allow your students to brainstorm (with your guidance and direction, of course) routines and rules that would ensure the success of all students. You may be surprised of some areas of concern they discuss and rules to address these concerns. As teachers, we don't always see everything going on in the classroom.

This Classroom Rules interactive notebook activity is a great way to allow students input in the rules and procedures of the classroom. Students may add to the suggested rules, or they may create all news ones after a whole classroom discussion.

Display rules around the room. You may begin with this classroom poster, then allow the students to create their own versions to hang around the room.

3. Create a classroom environment that encourages teamwork. Depending on the size of your classroom, can you allow for work spaces for student to collaborate? Are the desks in rows? Are the desks in groups? Do you have a group table for easy interaction? When a student walks into the room, do they get a feel of inclusion and cooperation? Pretend you are a student in your classroom for a day? How would it feel?

Visit this blog post to read about a teacher who shadowed a student for a day.

Decorate your classroom with student artwork. Show the students you value their work by displaying it. Create a positive environment!

This a great poster to remind students to include others.

This poster celebrates diversity.

This poster defines the behavior of a team.

This poster reinforces we are all on the same team!

4. Plan classroom activities that allow for students to work as a team. Brain research tells us that movement in the classroom increases student achievement. How? Well, movement causes your brain neurons to fire and become active. Active brain equals active learning.

Task cards are a great way to encourage teamwork and movement activities. This resource gives you lots of ideas to get you started!

It also helps to know your students' learning styles. Are they a visual learner? Auditory? Kinesthetic? This packet has an activity to help determine learning styles.

5. Celebrate student successes. It is important for students to learn to appreciate and acknowledge each other's efforts. Brainstorm words and phrases to compliment each other. Perhaps create a "Positive Words" word wall on which to add words and phrases throughout the year. Celebrations can be be verbal or nonverbal. They may be an activity or special event. Little tokens are also appreciated. :)

These stickers (from Amazon affiliate) promote teamwork.