Why Encourage Team Building in the Elementary Classroom?

Why should we encourage Teamwork in the Elementary Classroom? 

I've encouraged children to work as a team in my classroom for many years. Although they're not necessarily going to score better on those high stakes tests, working as a team helps children develop many important skills!

 

 

Here are some of the skills children learn from team building activities:

• communication
• collaboration
• listening
• time management
• problem solving
• putting others first
• conflict management

 
Interesting, some might say these are "life skills!" Yes, these are skills that children need to develop to be successful in life, which I feel is far more important than being successful on tests!

 

These are some activities to encourage teamwork in the classroom:

• morning meeting activities
• shared stories
  
• project based learning
• STEM or STEAM projects
• put on a class play
• relay races
• team trivia
  
• partner work
  
• plan a class party
• scavenger hunts 
• educational games, played as teams

I'm sure you can think of plenty more, even activities connected to your curriculum! Make sure to mention that the goal is to "work as a team," and "look out for the others!"

 

 

Most important, motivate them to encourage others! Make sure these words are used often! 

• Good job!
• You can do it!
• Awesome job!
• You are incredible!
• You figured it out!
• You're on the right track!
• You make it look easy!
• That's the way!
• You've got this! 
• I can see you're really trying!

Here's an idea: let them make a list of more encouraging words, and display them for children to use as a reference. Be sure to model using encouraging words for your whole class team!

 Looking for more ideas on encouraging Team Building? Here are several links for you!

• Team Building, Ice Breakers, and Get to Know You Activities for Distance Learning or in Class
  
• Dramatics in the Classroom
  
• Space Balls
  
• Six Ways to Integrate Team Building Into Your Curriculum
  
• Paper Bag Dramatics
  
• Be Prepared for Giggles
  
• Pass the Clap - a Fun Game!
• 25 Alternatives to Handshakes
  
• The Bulgaria Game
  
• Building Social Skills AND Academics with Morning Meeting
  
• Five Team Building Activities for Back to School
  
• Team Building Activities 
• Partner Standing Challenge
  

 

 

Team Building, Ice Breakers, and Get to Know You Activities for Distance Learning or In Class

In order to teach children, we need to build relationships with them. In order to work comfortably with each other, they need to build relationships with each other. 

 

So how can we build relationships while staying socially distant? How can we build relationships when we're working remotely? 

Schools are opening in a variety of ways: in person, completely online, or some hybrid version of both of these. No matter how your school is opening, these things are important:

1. Building bonds of trust with your students.
2. Helping students build bonds with each other.
3. Get to know the students academic abilities,
4. Help the children get to know your expectations and procedures. 

This blog post suggests some team building and getting to know you activities, but these same activities will also help  you get to know your students, while showing your expectations as well!

 

Many team building activities can be done in a socially distant class as well as online. Here's one way:

 

Morning Meetings are a great way to start the day! I like to start with some sort of greeting, which can be done if we're all in the same room, or if we're working remotely. These Morning Meeting Greeting Activities come with a fun question for every single day, a nice picture (that can be used as a background for remote learning) and the same writing prompt that can be printed or sent home electronically. 

Whether you're in school or at home, Boom Learning activities are a must! They're amazingly easy to assign in class or online. They're compatible with every platform, and can be sent home with just a link. Plus, the teacher can monitor how each child is doing!

 

 

 

Who am I Boom Cards are perfect for the beginning of the school year. This is a chance for the children to think about who they are, and how they can contribute to their class. 

 

Plus, they get plenty of reading and writing practice! (And the teacher can assess these skills through their responses!)

 

Building Friendships is a popular Boom Resource that gets the children thinking about making good choices when it comes to socializing.

 

Good Citizenship Boom is a great opportunity for children to think about social situations! This will help them learn what kind of expectations you have in your class. The stories give them plenty of examples of positive interactions in the classroom and on the playground.

 

 

This resource has a collection of games and activities for building Classroom Community that can be played in a Socially Distant Classroom or remotely:  20 Socially Distant Team Building Games and Activities to Build Classroom Community
 

No matter how you are going back to school this year, I'm sure you'll find ways to build relationships with your students. What's your plan?

 

 

The Bulgaria Game

 Brain research tells us that getting students engaged physically will help learning happen!

This game is a great "filler" that will get the kiddos thinking about communication without words.

The game's title only works well if you don't have anyone in your group that speaks Bulgarian. If you do have someone who speaks Bulgarian, you'll have to change the name of the game to some language that no one knows, since the game depends on broken lines of communication.

Here's the scenario: you happen to be traveling through Bulgaria. You need something, so you pull over into a convenience store.

Unfortunately, the people working in the store only speak Bulgarian, which you don't speak. 

Therefore, you have to "act out" what you'll need!

There are a couple of ways to proceed once they know the story:

1. Let individuals think of things to act out.

2. Let groups think of things to act out.

3. Have slips written up with things to act out.

Of course, #3 can be done with individuals or teams.

If you go with #3, you can find ways to use content vocabulary and make it count as academic! 

Yes, it's not very likely that they'll have to pull into a convenience store in Bulgaria for landforms or geometric shapes, but they are usually having so much fun acting out vocabulary words, they don't mind!

 A word of caution: some children are VERY competitive, and try to make it difficult for others to guess their word. Or, they're disappointed if their audience figures it out right away. 

I have to remind them that the goal of the game is to communicate enough information so that their audience understands what they're acting out. If the audience gets it right away, they have communicated successfully!

I know, it's kind of a silly scenario just to get children to act things out, but it's a fun story, and the children enjoy it!

After all, if it motivates the students to engage, it's successful!

Six Ways to Integrate Team Building into Your Curriculum

Of course I have always wanted my students to be successful in their school experiences. But I've always wanted more than that. I've wanted my students to be successful in life!

I recently did a search for skills needed for success in life. Most of the skills mentioned in each article overlapped. These are the ones that came up most often:

There is so much we must teach in our classrooms these days. How could we possibly squeeze in these important skills as well?

It just so happens in my studies of brain research, I've been focused on numerous Team Building activities, and I've got some ideas on how we can squeeze these activities into our curriculum. (After all, brain research tells us that FUN is an element that helps a brain remember things!)

Countdown is a game the kiddos love, and there are many ways to tie some curriculum into the game! You can find a freebie download of this game here: How to Play Countdown.

(You'll have to scroll down for the freebie.) In "Countdown," all you need is a sequence. In second grade, I often play the game with skip counting, since that's something they need to hear and practice over and over. Other ideas for a sequence could be: seasons, states of matter, types of communities, types of rock formations, names of presidents, or countries in Europe. 

Speed Chatting is a Team Building activity that gives the children a chance to talk... a LOT! All you have to do to include an area of the curriculum is to give them a topic to discuss! It might be: books you've read, facts about weather, interesting words you know, a country in South America, or whatever you happen to be studying at the time! Plus, talking about what they're learning enhances the learning! You can see more about this activity here: Speed Chatting.

Paper Bag Dramatics is another fun Team Building activity. It involves creating skits with the props in a bag. This can easily be connected to the curriculum by putting things in each bag that are connected to an area of the curriculum. If you're studying the 5 senses, you can put things (or pictures, or word cards) that can be smelled or tasted. If you're studying plants, you can put some plant types (or pictures, or word cards) that show the parts of plants. Get it? You can find more about paper bag dramatics here: Paper Bag Dramatics.

Pass the Clap is a favorite for the kiddos! Now I'm having a hard time trying to think of a way to include curriculum ideas for this one, since it really doesn't include verbal communication. However, if you look at the list of important skills above, we've got #2 and #8 covered! If you can think of a way to include curriculum with this one, please leave it in the comments below. But in the meantime, squeeze this one in somewhere, since these are important skills. (It only takes a couple of minutes, and it's a great warm-up activity during Morning Meeting!) To read more about this game, see here: Pass the Clap.

High-Low is an activity I always play with students at the end of the day. However, it doesn't have to be at the end of the day. It could be at the end of a certain subject in school. The children could discuss the high and low of their math lesson, the book they're reading, a science experiment, a country they've been studying, and so on. As we know, talking about a lesson reinforces learning. Plus, they LOVE to talk about themselves! To learn more about this activity see here: High-Low.

Party Talk is super fun and a great culmination activity! I was introduced to this when I was taking my masters program in Creative Arts in Learning. In my Music Integration class, we were to do research on a composer. I chose to research Steven Sondheim, who composes a lot of music for the theatre. (Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Follies, Company, etc.) Instead of having us get up and just talk about our composer, the instructor gave us "Hello My Name is" badges and we had a "cocktail party." We went around, with our (non-alcoholic) drinks, and introduced ourselves and talked about our lives. It was so much fun! Many years later, I was teaching 5th grade Social Studies. The children were researching famous people in the revolutionary war era. Of course I couldn't have a "cocktail party" with 5th graders, but we could have a "Boston Tea Party!" In this case, the kids were drinking tea, not dumping tea into the harbor. Again, we made "Hello My Name is" badges, served tea and "crumpets" and we had ourselves a tea party! Many of the kids even dressed up colonial style! I'm sure you can think of many other ways of having a "Party Talk."

Still looking for ideas to squeeze these important into your day? Be sure to check out this resource: 60 Team Building Games and Activities.