Even though we’re now all firmly into the new school year, it is important to continue team building with our students in order to foster a community of connected collaborators. Usually I hit the ground running with getting-to-know-you games and team-building activities the first week of school to ease into routines and introduce new classmates and classroom management. That said, those activities seem to quickly fall off my radar once the second or third week of school hits. This year, one of my goals is to weave team-building activities into every week to continue to grow stronger as a community of learners.
This collection of both academic and social activities is quick, easy, effective, and FREE. They are tasks that can be fun interjections into your day during morning meeting, transitions, brain breaks, or end-of-day routines. Set a goal to do one or two each week, and see how easy it is to maintain team-building routines all year long!
WHY This is Important All Year:
- Students can always learn more about each other and firm up peer relationships
- Continued speaking/listening skills practice
- Remedy (or prevent) peer/friend issues that may be starting to bubble up
- Review/modeling of expectations and appropriate/inappropriate behaviors
- Icebreakers for new, more difficult academic tasks to come
- Improve patience, acceptance, problem solving, and creative thinking
- Shake up any existing cliques that may tend to form as the year progresses.
- Quick brain breaks for nice transitions during day/week
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