Building Rapport Activity & Games:
These are the ones I spoke to you about during class.
There are lots of interactive activities and games you can play to build rapport with students and to use as a platform for building a positive classroom climate that serves to model respect, inclusion, and belonging.
I highly recommend utilizing the article "The First 20 Days: Establishing Productive Group Work in the Classroom" by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. This is from their text "Engaging the Adolescent Learner". It is a how-to list of activities to embed in your instruction during the first four weeks of school. These activities not only introduce your students to your expectations for group-work, but they also give you the "why" we need students to learn to collaborate while learning. This can be found by scrolling down this page.
Some activities that I enjoy using to not only help me learn about my new students, but to also give them more insights to each other are: tableau, Last Man Standing, I Have/Who Has, Ask Mrs. T 3, and What do you wish I knew?
Tableau - Before class, develop slips of paper that name some common activities that most students would recognize (i.e. riding a roller coaster, playing basketball, riding a bicycle, etc.). Divide students up (don't let them group by themselves, you want to create new connections between students) into groups of six to eight. Let the group blindly select a slip of paper. The group will then need to talk a few minutes about how they can portray this activity without moving or speaking. Then give them a few minutes to practice and work out the kinks. I usually give 10 minutes for students to work on the first one, then less time to prepare once they've got the hang of the activity. Use an online timer to keep everyone on track, then have the groups present their tableau one-at-a-time. While one group strikes their pose, the teacher should ask the other classmates questions like, "What do you see?," or "What could be going on here?" Once the viewers guess the tableau topic, congratulate the performers and move on to the next group's tableau. You can Google lists of tableau topics if you need help in developing topics. Also, I often use tableau for students to show their understanding of text. This article on the Teacher Toolkit website gives great ideas for using this activity for assessment.
Last Man Standing - I begin by asking everyone in the class to stand up, then ask a series of questions (beginning with one that is very broad like "Who in the class has ever rode a school bus?" and moving into more narrow questions like "Who has a pet hamster?") If the questions describes that student, they should remain standing. If the question does not describe the student, they need to sit down. I usually say, "If you can answer yes, then remain standing, if you cannot, please sit down." The games works by students who've sat down NOT standing back up on the next question. That way you'll eventually have only one (sometimes two) student standing. Then start over with everyone standing back up. For a variation, you can just have students who can answer yes to the question stand, and those who cannot sit. This is quick, easy, and tells you a lot about your students.
I Have/Who Has & Bingo - There are many easy I Have, Who Has games out there that you can use to break the ice and get students actually speaking in class. I suggest using ones based on content they would be very familiar with, like parts of speech. The same goes for Bingo games. You can also make your own of these two activities using templates on the internet.
Ask Mrs. T 3 - I don't tell my students a lot about myself the first week so that they can discover things on their own. I spend the last few minutes each day the first week allowing them to ask me three questions. They are usually questions like how long I've been a teacher, am I married, do I have kids, etc. I usually get a few weird ones too like, "Do you like zombies?", or "Have you ever ate alligator?"
What do you wish I knew? - At the end of September, beginning of October, I will send out a Google Form with the question, "What do you wish I knew about you, your family, or your life?" Set the form so that responses are private, and assure students that you've done so. If you learn something that needs to be acted upon, please bring the student in privately with you (and maybe a partner teacher) so that you can let them talk. They may just want to eat lunch with you to unload. They will most often want to speak to you before the counselor, unless they knew him/her before. If you need to act upon the information, you need to let them know how proud you are that they told you and how you are obligated to report this information. They know you have to, so even if they protest, they usually want you to know and help.
INVITING STUDENTS TO LEARN: 100 TIPS FOR TALKING EFFECTIVELY TO YOUR STUDENTS by Jenny Edwards
This book gives you LOTS of tips on how to speak positively to your students. What do you want to say to them that they'll remember forever? Just click on the title for a download of the book. Or it's a quick and inexpensive read from Amazon.
These are the ones I spoke to you about during class.
There are lots of interactive activities and games you can play to build rapport with students and to use as a platform for building a positive classroom climate that serves to model respect, inclusion, and belonging.
I highly recommend utilizing the article "The First 20 Days: Establishing Productive Group Work in the Classroom" by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. This is from their text "Engaging the Adolescent Learner". It is a how-to list of activities to embed in your instruction during the first four weeks of school. These activities not only introduce your students to your expectations for group-work, but they also give you the "why" we need students to learn to collaborate while learning. This can be found by scrolling down this page.
Some activities that I enjoy using to not only help me learn about my new students, but to also give them more insights to each other are: tableau, Last Man Standing, I Have/Who Has, Ask Mrs. T 3, and What do you wish I knew?
Tableau - Before class, develop slips of paper that name some common activities that most students would recognize (i.e. riding a roller coaster, playing basketball, riding a bicycle, etc.). Divide students up (don't let them group by themselves, you want to create new connections between students) into groups of six to eight. Let the group blindly select a slip of paper. The group will then need to talk a few minutes about how they can portray this activity without moving or speaking. Then give them a few minutes to practice and work out the kinks. I usually give 10 minutes for students to work on the first one, then less time to prepare once they've got the hang of the activity. Use an online timer to keep everyone on track, then have the groups present their tableau one-at-a-time. While one group strikes their pose, the teacher should ask the other classmates questions like, "What do you see?," or "What could be going on here?" Once the viewers guess the tableau topic, congratulate the performers and move on to the next group's tableau. You can Google lists of tableau topics if you need help in developing topics. Also, I often use tableau for students to show their understanding of text. This article on the Teacher Toolkit website gives great ideas for using this activity for assessment.
Last Man Standing - I begin by asking everyone in the class to stand up, then ask a series of questions (beginning with one that is very broad like "Who in the class has ever rode a school bus?" and moving into more narrow questions like "Who has a pet hamster?") If the questions describes that student, they should remain standing. If the question does not describe the student, they need to sit down. I usually say, "If you can answer yes, then remain standing, if you cannot, please sit down." The games works by students who've sat down NOT standing back up on the next question. That way you'll eventually have only one (sometimes two) student standing. Then start over with everyone standing back up. For a variation, you can just have students who can answer yes to the question stand, and those who cannot sit. This is quick, easy, and tells you a lot about your students.
I Have/Who Has & Bingo - There are many easy I Have, Who Has games out there that you can use to break the ice and get students actually speaking in class. I suggest using ones based on content they would be very familiar with, like parts of speech. The same goes for Bingo games. You can also make your own of these two activities using templates on the internet.
Ask Mrs. T 3 - I don't tell my students a lot about myself the first week so that they can discover things on their own. I spend the last few minutes each day the first week allowing them to ask me three questions. They are usually questions like how long I've been a teacher, am I married, do I have kids, etc. I usually get a few weird ones too like, "Do you like zombies?", or "Have you ever ate alligator?"
What do you wish I knew? - At the end of September, beginning of October, I will send out a Google Form with the question, "What do you wish I knew about you, your family, or your life?" Set the form so that responses are private, and assure students that you've done so. If you learn something that needs to be acted upon, please bring the student in privately with you (and maybe a partner teacher) so that you can let them talk. They may just want to eat lunch with you to unload. They will most often want to speak to you before the counselor, unless they knew him/her before. If you need to act upon the information, you need to let them know how proud you are that they told you and how you are obligated to report this information. They know you have to, so even if they protest, they usually want you to know and help.
INVITING STUDENTS TO LEARN: 100 TIPS FOR TALKING EFFECTIVELY TO YOUR STUDENTS by Jenny Edwards
This book gives you LOTS of tips on how to speak positively to your students. What do you want to say to them that they'll remember forever? Just click on the title for a download of the book. Or it's a quick and inexpensive read from Amazon.