How to Implement Community Building Activities for Elementary School Children

Community building activities are designed to help students know one another and work together. When you promote team building and cooperation among elementary school children, you give them the opportunity to develop their interpersonal skills with kids from other homes, backgrounds, and cultures.

Apart from working as a team and establishing relationships, being able to build trust is important in school. And with the right mix of community building activities, you can prepare students for the new life ahead of them.

Why are Community Building Activities Important?

At the beginning of a new year, schools welcome new students and encourage their already-known students to interact with them. Even teachers try their best to help new kids fit in into the classroom and school system.

However, there have been cases where some students kept to themselves. In other cases, new students have been bullied into silence and withdrawals, therefore losing the opportunity to mingle, make friends, and have fun.

Inasmuch as elementary education is the primary level of actual learning for many children, it should be filled with games and activities that allow them to connect with other students and appreciate the school experience.

In essence, the onus lies on the teacher to engage students in community building activities for kids that enhance social skills and verbal fluency. The right ideas come with the following benefits:

·         Students in the new class are often eager to express themselves during team games

·         Every child gets to feel a sense of equality

·         The need for critical thinking is gradually developed during activities

·         Physical health is encouraged through movement-based activities

·         The learning environment becomes welcoming and supportive.

How to Implement Community Building Activities

Now that you appreciate the value of community building activities for elementary students, let’s discuss the ways through which you can execute these ideas.

·         Try a STEM Activity

Even though STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) is common during summer, you can integrate some of the interesting STEM activities into the classroom.

Put the students into groups and give them some materials to create something (like a design). Additionally, you could ask them to solve a puzzle or try to crack a code.

·        Parachute Games

Parachute games are another group of community building activities that encourage students to work together and depend on each other.  

·        Talk About Yourself Activity

Ask the children to write something about themselves on a tiny piece of paper. Afterward, have them fold it neatly and drop it into a basket. Play a song and have a child pick one when the music stops.

When the papers have gone round, let each child read the content of their paper and identify the child who wrote it.   

Conclusion

Are you looking to bring out the best in the students in your elementary class? Consider including some community building activities in your classroom routine.

Encourage each child to contribute something or get involved in one activity or the other. In  time, you’ll find that they’ve built strong and impactful relationships.

Benefits of Encouraging Children to Read Over the Summer Months

When summer vacation begins, parents of elementary school children think of keeping their kids engaged in some extracurricular activities. Before summer break, teachers would have spent their time teaching new material besides taking them through new concepts. But once school vacation commences, children just stay away from all things academic as far as possible.

After all, it is a natural tendency for children to start playing, going to meet the grandparents, and even visiting cousins and friends. They may simply idle away their time. But there is an opportunity for parents to incorporate a little reading or writing sessions intermittently.

Why is this Summer Reading Necessary?

It is natural for children to forget a substantial amount of what was taught in school and spend their summer without a care in the world. But that just means that when school re-opens after the summer break, they go back having to relearn what they have learned in the previous school year. 

This is why educational experts from around the world have agreed that it is a lot more than just a great habit to encourage children to read during their summer vacation as well.

How to Encourage Children to Read during the summer?

While a few children might simply love studying and go to sit and read on their own, most kids in elementary school would need some incentives to sit and read. School teachers and parents might get together to draft a summer reading plan for the same effect.

In order to prevent summer reading loss, teachers might have a program where they can have at least five or six of the children’s favorite lessons on board. They can give as an assignment and have an evaluation prepared after the first week school reopens.

Children can pick one of their favorite books for the summer and read it out loud for thirty minutes at least every day during the break. This would be a great way to keep the child engaged during the holidays too.

As they say, “The child that reads becomes the adult that thinks.”