Welcome Kids Back to School With Connection Before Content (and Reading)
This post is about planning for the first days or weeks of school and how to focus on connecting with students. You will find a list of activities that:
Create space for students and teachers to establish and build relationships.
Present opportunities for students to begin working together to start building community.
Provide invitations for students to share about who they are and what is important to them.
Each have books listed for read alouds that connect to the theme of the activity.
I recently met with a teacher to discuss planning for the new school year ahead. I assured her that it is okay and encouraged that she prioritize relationship-building with students in the early weeks of September (and throughout the year). I could tell that she needed reassurance that it was not frowned upon if she did not start the curriculum on the second day of school. We proceeded to talk about how the connections we make with kids at the start really pave the way for the year ahead. It is challenging to support readers and writers without knowing about them. Reading and writing are personal processes so we need to constantly learn about the people in our classrooms to create spaces for them to connect to and embrace literacy practices.
I remember arriving back in my classroom in August and being overwhelmed by the thought of re-establishing routines and practices that were already in place with last year’s students just two months prior. I tended to thrive in the comfort of my established relationships and classroom community, and I was always reawakened in September by having to start from the beginning. It’s hard work, but wonderful and necessary work.
One of the great realities of our profession is that we start a new year twice - once in August or September and once in January. Instead of saying Happy New Year! with confetti and noisemakers as summer fades into fall, we say Welcome Back to School! with new books and freshly sharpened pencils.
In addition to those new books and freshly sharpened pencils, it is helpful to prepare material for students and families that introduces the teacher, the course and/or curriculum, and the routines and expectations of the learning community. There are different ways to share the information depending on the age of the students and type of class - a course contract, a syllabus, a brochure, a letter, a presentation, a flier, a one-pager. There is usually some documentation that students, caregivers, and the teacher have all read the information. Consider waiting to engage in this process. Let the new routines and expectations that are shared with families happen with students and not to students.
Prioritize the kids, not the content or the contract.
This wasn’t always my practice in my early years of teaching. I typically dedicated the second or third day of school to “going over” information about the class, routines, and expectations. One year, I decided to postpone. Instead, I extended the time I spent on explicit community building because it is what you learn and notice about your students when participate in discussions and work together that can influence what is valued and important to share with others. Class contracts should be mutual and representative of who participates in the learning community.
Below are activities to consider engaging students in to build the learning community.
Books that connect to the themes of the activities are also shared. Most of the books are picture books. Picture books are catalysts for discussion among students in all grades (PreK-12). The books vary in topic and age-appropriateness. All learning communities are different. Choose what fits in your context.
Identity maps: No matter what you teach, who you teach is the priority in planning. Engage students in creating identity maps so that you can learn about who they are and what is important to them. Create an identity map for yourself so your students can get to know you and provide choices of ways in which they can map who they are.
Read Aloud Connection: All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold, Island Born by Junot Díaz, The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, The Map of Good Memories by Fran Nuño, The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi
Class Agreements: Engage students in the process of creating agreements that the class will adhere to throughout the year. Share the question: What is important to you as we participate in our learning community together? Provide time for students to reflect on this question individually. After, put students into small groups to share their ideas and to identify commonalities and differences in their preferences. Then, each group can share what they discussed as you facilitate the creation of a statement or list that includes what is agreed upon among the class. Invite each student to sign the agreement list, post it in your physical and virtual classroom spaces, and share it with families.
Read Aloud Connection: Going Places by Peter and Paul Reynolds, I Am Human: A Book of Empathy by Susan Verde, The World Needs More Purple People by Kristen Bell and Benjamin Hart
Build a self-representation creation: Provide students with household and classroom items to create something that represents themselves, what is important to them, or how they feel about a new school year. Items may include Playdoh or clay, pipe cleaners, index cards, pom-poms, straws, tape, paper clips, Post-its, popsicle sticks, etc.. Students may also write a “museum card” to explain their representation and/or share orally with the class. You may choose to keep the cards and/or document what is shared as data to use to plan instruction and activities.
Read Aloud Connection: The Creativity Project: An Awesometastic Story Collection Edited by Colby Sharp, The Smart Cookie by Jory John
Team challenges and collaboration: Think Minute-to-Win It style! Create team challenges for students to engage in each day during the first week of school. Team challenges may include: build the tallest tower out of index cards or paper cups, create the longest or tallest structure without speaking to your team, move objects from Point A to Point B with a rubber band tool without touching the objects with your hands, etc.. Have students work within a different team each day. Observe communication styles, efforts in collaboration, behaviors, attitudes toward teamwork, and emerging leadership.
Read Aloud Connection: Flooded by Mariajo Ilustrajo, The Floating Field: How a Group of Thai Boys Built Their Own Soccer Field by Scott Riley
Goal setting: Engage students in personal and academic goal-setting. Students can develop short-term (by quarter) and long-term goals (for the year) and create specific and reasonable action plans. Develop a system that holds students accountable to themselves and plan to integrate reflection throughout the school year so students can monitor their progress.
Read Aloud Connection: Maybe by Kobi Yamada, The Magical Yet by Angela DiTerlizzi, The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game Called Life by Kwamme Alexander (secondary grades), When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni
Plan a series of read alouds: Read alouds create a space for conservation and shared learning. Choose 3-5 books or text excerpts with various themes and ideas that you want students to think about as they enter a new school year. Read them to students throughout the first week of school and provide a space for journaling in response to the reading and discussion. At the end of the series, ask students to pick one reading experience to create an extended response about, either written or recorded orally, to share their thoughts with you. You may learn what themes and ideas students connect to. Their responses may impact what you prioritize within the class.
Read Aloud Connection: Choose from the books mentioned above to put a collection together that addresses themes of identity, collaboration, goal-setting and perseverance, decision-making, creativity, and empathy.
Tour Tech: Create an inventory to gauge students’ comfort with, access to, and experience with technology and digital tools. This will help to plan what tools you need to provide explicit instruction on and how you may need to proceed in developing digital literacy competencies. You may also give a tour of the digital tools and platforms you will be using throughout the year and provide time for students to explore them, especially those that are new, so you can seamlessly integrate technology into instruction and coursework.
Share the literacy leadership:
Teachers: Consider these activities when planning for the beginning days and weeks of school and any time throughout the year when you may need to re-establish learning community connections. Relationships and the learning community need attending to all throughout the school year.
Administrators: Consider reassuring teachers that relationships with students and class community-building are priority items just like curriculum and course contracts. How might you model this as you welcome teachers back to school? Consider using one of the read alouds suggested to engage in conversation about connections before content with your team.