Week 13. BUILDING COMMUNITY IN THE CLASSROOM

Building a community in the classroom is very important for us as teachers and for our students. students have to get used to their new teacher or new students have to get used to the class and classmates, they have to feel comfortable in the classroom if we want to have a nice environment and of course if we want them to succeed in school.

So at the beginning of the year especially during the first month we have to create an emotionally secure “home base” for the children to learn in. There are different activities we can do, for example games where the children can know each other, or games they had played before, so they feel indentify with them. We can also use nice decoration. We have to show our students we care about their feelings, we have to help them whenever they need, and always listen to them. If we have to opportunity to include their families in some way in the process would be very helpful, remember families are a key ingredient to the students’ feelings.

We can have many tools to create a community in the classroom but what really counts is you: your loving, compassionate attitude towards the children in your classroom family that creates a joyful community