Building relationships with our students really is EVERYTHING!! Getting to know my kids is my favorite part of being an educator. They walk in your room on that first day. Many are nervous. Some are excited. Some are both. I know I am always nervous- EVERY year! Do you get the 1st day jitters, too? It doesn't matter how many years I have been teaching, but I always feel excited and nervous. When we start our day together on the rug for whole group time, I always share how I am feeling, and I love all the suprised looks I get. They would have never thought their teacher might have the jitters!
It is so important to start the year building a relationship with each student individually but also building our class community. Each child needs to know they are important and a part of our class family. Knowing we care about them helps them feel a part of the class.
Building relationships impacts their behavor AND academic learning. Like I said before - it is everything! My parents will choose if they want their child to learn at school or learn at home. I want them all to feel included in our class family. Parents have the option each 9 weeks to bring them to school, so they may begin coming during the school year.
I am listing out some ways I begin to form relationships with my students. There are so many, so please share if you have more ideas, too!
Since it will be quite different this year, I also am sharing ways it can be adjusted this year.
How can we build relationships in school?
*Talk to them one on one
It doesn't have to be about school- just take the time to get to know them. It can be about anything. It shows them you care and want to know them. When tying their shoes, taking restroom breaks, helping with snacks, take those opportunities to get to know them.
*Lunch buddies
You begin to know their personalities pretty quickly and who might be needing lots of practice with routines and teaching correct behavior. Teachers, you know what I mean! Ha ha! Have lunch with them first- trust me- it helps! When I have lunch with each one, I really get to know them much quicker, and they start to open up more with me. I love this time with them. They tell me about their families, what they like, their favorite things, and much more. Later on in the year, I might have two of them eat with me for some social time.
This year: We have to eat lunch in our room this year, so I am planning to have 1 near me at my teacher table to still get this time.
*Morning Greetings
I love greeting them when they walk in the room every day! I have my morning greetings up in the doorway, and they can choose how they want to be greeted. Again, this year will look different, so we will have different morning greetings, but they can still be fun and let them know you are excited they are here. I am working on these this week so they will be in my TpT store soon!
I also have each one greet the person next to them when we start our morning meeting. We usually shake hands and say "Good morning, ____". This helps them learn each others names, too.
This year: I am still planning to have them greet each other. We will learn different waves they can still do around the room. It can be waving and saying, "Good morning, Johnny". It can also be something silly like move your arms like a chicken or wave high/ wave low.
*Sharing Chair
My students love to sit on our sharing chair. We use it for morning meetings, writing time, show and tell, and any time they want to share. In the mornings, I let them talk about anything they want to most mornings, and then the others can raise their hands and ask a question. This is always great practice for asking questions, too. Let me also say- not everyone shares each day. I ask them if anyone wants to share and have a jar of popsicle sticks with their names on them. I check to make sure they haven't shared recently and flip their stick to "shared". This way it is not the same ones sharing.
This year: I am hoping to still use this chair but have a much wider space to spread out. I will let you know how that will work. I am planning to use sit spots instead of places on my rug so that should help.
*Student of the Week
This is one of my favorite ways to get to know each student even more! The kids LOVE it because they learn more about them outside of school. The parents choose a week that works best for them, and each student brings a poster with pictures and all about them and their favorite things. They share their poster on Monday, and it stays up all week until they take it home on Friday. The kids look at it all week, and they feel so proud of their posters!
This year: I plan to still have student of the week, and record each one sharing so they can also see it (at home or in school). The ones that are at home can make their poster and drop it off at school or can make a digital version that I will share with everyone. (I will give them a template) I want to share everyone's posters because we still are a class together.
*Classroom Jobs
It is very important to me for everyone to have a job. Now, this year will definitely be different and lots of jobs will be changed some. We might not be able to have as many jobs this year since they will need to do a lot independently. They may be doing all the jobs somewhat, and that is okay! It teaches them responsibility and makes them feel part of the team. We all work together!
Let them be a leader. It tells them that we trust them to do what is best. My most challenging kids make the BEST hellpers!
*Sharing our thoughts/ feelings
We spend a lot of time learning social emotional skills. A LOT! We learn how to talk with each other, how we feel, how others feel, how to be a good friend, how to give personal space, how to show respect with each other, and the list goes on and on. This helps so much to become more self aware and aware of other's feelings.
One activity that I like to do at the beginning of the year was about feelings. Each day we talked about a certain feeling like being angry, happy, etc. I made a chart for each one and asked them all what makes YOU feel that way. They came up and shared the pen (bonus interactive writing lesson- ha!) and wrote what makes them sad or happy depending on the feeling that day. We learned SO much about each other through this! It led to many discussions later on because a lot relating to situations at school or home. Great activity! Here is one we did early on (this one wasn't with interactive writing).
*Find out their interests
Find out what they like and what they want to learn about. It is good way to let them know we value them and want to know more about them. We can celebrate our differences and strengths! They will also be much more engaged and eager to learn when we can tie things in with their interests.
*Redirect or praise privately
No one wants to be called out or embarrassed. It hurts your relationship and makes them feel so small. I have heard the comparison - think how you would feel if you were called out in a staff meeting in front of everyone. It would be awful, and I would start to lose respect for that person. I may even start to question it like- why does it matter what I do? That is how our kids feel.
*Play and laugh with them
I'll be honest here- sometimes I have to remind myself to play and have fun, get silly, and just laugh! I get caught up in all the things we need to do, but when we can pause and play music or have a little dance party, it just gives us a break and have fun together!
How can I build relationships while Distance Learning?
This year will be a little harder starting with distance learning to build the relationships like we normally do, but it can be done.
*Lessons as a group
If you are teaching in person and virtually (like me- as of now), then include them as much as you can with daily activities. I am planning to zoom with mine at home during calendar and morning meeting and read aloud. This is our bonding time, and I want all of them to be a part of it!
I am also planning to do some lessons with all of them. I think some lessons will need to be recorded because not all lessons are on schedule in Kindergarten. They mostly are, but you have to have a little flexibility. Right??
*All About Me activities
This is a great way to get to know each other in the beginning of the year and can be done very easily even digitally. It is important to find ways to get to know each other. This is a fun way to do it, and you could share the screen on a zoom to show each other's work. Take a couple of weeks and do a few at a time. They will love it and feel more comfortable knowing more about each other and develop friendships.
*Small groups online
I loved meeting with small groups during distance learning. We all had a few minutes to share as a whole group, but it is much easier to do in a small group. We may start off talking about a lesson or something we are working on, but then I allow time just to talk. It is so nice to have that time.
*Lunch zooms or chat time
Just like in small groups, I love to visit with them one on one or with just two of them. I have used facetime and zoom - whatever works best for you. It is just a relaxing way to chat with them, see how they are feeling, and enjoy our visit. Sometimes they would tell me what they like and don't like in our online lessons which I like. It can be very helpful!
*Spirit Days
This is so much fun and an easy way to get them excited!! Some spirit days might be your school spirit shirt, wear your favorite shirt, wear a certain color, silly socks or crazy hair, dress up. There are so many ideas you could do for that.
*Social Emotional lessons and activities
This is soooooo important no matter what. They need to know you are there for them and believe in them. There are so many amazing books to read with them that lead to great discussions and activities. I will share several soon!
*Seesaw Blog
I have mentioned this in my last post about distance learning. I can not tell you enough how much I LOVE using the blog!! We had so much fun with it, and they made me laugh every day! I would assign a question like what is your favorite pizza or show us your favorite toy. They would make a video and share it on seesaw. It was so cute!!! Then, I added it to the blog so that everyone could see it and comment on it. They would comment on each others through voice comments or text.
We also used it to share crafts they made or their writing (author's chair). They loved going through it and seeing everyone's posts.
The blog is so easy to set up, and the kids can click on the world icon (blog) to see it. I do not have my group set to being able to see each other's work, and I prefer using the blog to show some of it instead. You can give the link to parents and set a password so they can view it also. When they students want to add something to the blog or comment on someone's post, it always goes to me first to approve it. I am glad for that!! Definitely check it out if you use Seesaw!
There are soooo many ways to build and develop relationships with our students and within our class community. What ways do you like to build relationships?
Something I personally like to consider- What am I doing to strenthen this relationship?
