Reestablishing Classroom Community After a Break

The first day back at school after two and a half weeks of relaxation and family fun... ahhhhhh. 

If your students are anything like mine, it's a very exciting day where everyone is very excited to see each other, but also a little nutty and restless. With four students still on vacation, and a new student who arrived a week early (I already adore her- she is the sweetest little girl from Saudi Arabia!), I wanted to find a way to ease us back into school routines and expectations, while putting us back into a community frame of mind. 

At the beginning of the year we did an activity that I found on Pinterest (I can't find it again! If you know who originally posted the idea, please let me know so that I can give credit!) and will keep a part of my beginning-of-the-year routine for years to come. Before the students came in I hung posters around the room, each headed with one of the following questions:

1. Our classroom should be ___________ everyday. 
2. School is important because...
3. What should students in our class do to help our class run smoothly?
4. To reach my goals this year, I need to make sure I...
5. What does Miss Streisel need to do to help you learn and grow?

Three of the girls deciding on classroom expectations

We spent some time moving between posters independently with a marker, adding initialed ideas to each poster, and then talked about our ideas before setting our hopes and dreams and our classroom rules. 

Today I brought the posters back out and again hung them around the room. I told them about how much I love the beginning of a new year, my birthday, and a new school year because they're all times to look at where I am, think about what I love about my life, and what new goals I want to set for myself. The same is true for our classroom- a new year is the perfect time to reassess our community and our environment! This time, I told them that they could add a new idea to each poster, or they could find their idea from the beginning of the year and leave themselves a comment. After a little while, two little angel girls came over and told me that they were finished, and asked if they knew who had written certain comments and had seen them do very well on something or work hard on a goal, if they could leave them a 'good job!' message. I love these thoughtful little bambinos (bambini... sorry... I like the sound of bambinos...). Afterwards, we had a great talk about how we'd move forward this year. Hopefully in the next few months, our classroom will become/continue-to-be the joyful, fun, organized, tidy, creative, and kind classroom my students need!