Community Building and Outreach
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What: A classroom-builder that can be done to benefit the entire class is called “Can You Guess?” With this activity, the students will be given a piece of paper and they will be asked to write one “little known fact” about themselves that the rest of the group does not know. Once the students are done writing, ask them to fold their paper in two. The teacher will collect all folded up papers and will put them in a bucket. The teacher will pick one volunteer and read the paper they picked out of the bucket. The person who picked the piece of paper has to guess who the person was who wrote down the fact on the sheet. The person who picked the piece of paper must provide some sort of evidence to why they chose the specific person that they did. This activity can be done in one sitting, or the teacher can have students pick a piece of paper once a day or during specific free times so that it is an ongoing adventure (Can You Guess, 2009).
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Why/How: The whole class can perform this building activity as an ice-breaker or as a regular class builder that is used throughout the year. This whole class-builder enables students to know information about one another that they may have not known before, which makes them all more familiar with each other. If this activity was used as an ice-breaker, the teacher could solely focus on having everyone guess each other’s facts. However, I would use this activity as an ongoing activity that students can look forward to. I would assign at least one student fact per day and would begin the classroom day by having a student pull a fact, read it, and then we would come back as a class at the end of the day to determine who we all think it is.
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Research and Theory: According to research and theories, this activity fosters great opportunities for whole class community building while also having the students collaboratively work together. Within this activity, all of the students in the class must work together to determine what student they believe fits the fact for the day. The students are getting the chance to learn about one another, which can later grow into better classroom contributions and collaborations within specific teams (Kagan, 2009). By doing activities like this ice-breaker, the students will develop social, communication, and teamwork skills because they will be able to relate to one another more after facts have been shared about each individual (Kagan, 2009). This activity also promotes diversity within the classroom, which can overall help build classroom relationships amongst the students and teacher (Kagan, 2009).
Class-Builder
Team Builder
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What: A team-builder that students will participate in is called “All Aboard”. Within this activity, the teacher will have teams or groups of students (no more than 8) sit close together and then will put a rope on the ground (or a box made out of tape on the floor) around them. Once the students have accomplished this task, the teacher will congratulate them for working together, but challenge them to do it better. The teacher will make the rope smaller and see how they accomplish that. The teacher will keep continuing this until they run out of solutions. Eventually the area will get too small to put everybody in and they must get very creative and very close to solving the problem. The teacher will praise the students through each step (Bell, 2001).
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Why/How: The students would participate in this activity to help them communicate and problem solve with one another. This activity fosters team collaboration by every student within the group and if they do not all work together, they will not be successful. I would recommend this activity in the middle of the year rather than the beginning because the students will feel more comfortable with each other when they have to move closer to one another. I chose this activity because it involves various aspects of community building and is a great brain break for students. When the students participate in this activity, they are not even realizing that they are problem-solving together because it is perceived as being “fun”. This activity would be used when the teacher notices that the class is lacking energy and needs to get up and move. If the teacher’s class is lacking proper communication skills, this activity can also be implemented to help guide them in the right direction and provide a teachable moment to the students. After performing this activity, the students can reflect on what went well and what they could improve on for next time (this should involve their communication with each other).
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Research and Theory: This activity aligns with research and theories because the students are collaboratively working together in order to accomplish a goal (Kagan, 2009). This team-building activity provides a unique learning experience that stretches beyond content to create a safe community of learning. The students will cooperate and help one another to accomplish a goal, which overall helps build their classroom trust and communication (Kagan, 2009). Each person in the group is responsible not only for their own movements, but also for helping other teammates, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. The students are cooperatively learning, in this activity, to effectively problem-solve and communicate with their peers. According to Kagan, the students must collaborate until all members are on the same page, which the students will because if not everyone is on the same page, they will not be successful (2009).
Larger Community
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What: Students will be participating in “Feed My Starving Children” to help other communities that are in need of food. This event will be a classroom field trip that the students will be involved in. At Feed My Starving Children, the students work in teams to build and produce a specific amount of bags of food, while also racing against other teams to finish first. Feed My Starving Children is a fun environment for 5th graders that caters team and classroom building, by having the students work in their teams to produce a certain amount of food. This activity also creates a classroom-builder because the whole class would be working together to produce an overall amount of food to reach a goal as well. The students will begin by watching a video at the facility that shows children, the student’s age, in a poverty ridden area. After the video, the students will be broken up into groups of 3-5 students and brought to each station where they will put together food bags for shipment. The students must collaboratively work within their groups to produce a certain amount of bags of food by each doing a specific job at their stations. The groups will compete against one another to produce a certain amount of food. This activity actively engages all students and provides a fun competitive environment.
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Why/How- The students would participate in Feed My Starving Children because it is a great way to give back to other communities in need of food, but also, provides an important lesson that the students can take away from it all. I did not want to do a food drive because I wanted my students to be able to experience and gain understanding to the meaning of what they were doing. By participating in Feed My Starving Children, my students will gain appreciation for what they have by viewing what other kids are going through in high poverty areas, while also providing a self-fulfilling and accomplished feeling that they were able to help other kids their age. The students will participate in this activity by taking a half day off of school and going over to the Feed My Starving Children site.
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Research and Theory- This field trip aligns with research and theory because, according to Kagan, the students are collaboratively working together, thus creating a well working classroom environment (Kagan, 2009). Within these collaborative groups, students will be working together with 3-5 students within their groups, which is the effective amount of students to have participate and contribute fully (Kagan, 2009). The students will be randomly grouped together by the teacher and will be heterogeneous (Kagan, 2006). This field trip also follows best practices, according to Evertson and Emmer, because the students are acquiring life-long skills for working in groups, self-management, and effective communication (Evertson, 2013). The students are learning how to effectively communicate with each other by participating in Feed My Starving Children because if they do not communicate, they will not be successful in this activity. This activity overall fosters team-building and classroom-building by having students work together and learn how to effectively reach a common goal.
Bell, K. (2001, March 17). All Aboard. In PE Central. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://www.pecentral.org/lessonideas/ViewLesson.asp?ID=667#.WBaOweArLIU
Can You Guess? (2009). In Service and Inclusion. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://www.serviceandinclusion.org/conf/HSHT-Team-Building-Ice-Breaker-Manual-2008-09.pdf
Evertson, C. M., & Emmer, E. T. (2013). Classroom management for elementary teachers (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Kagan, S. & Kagan, M. (2009). Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.
