Start your year off on a great foot! In the midst of teaching procedures during the first few weeks of school, you need to add in building student relationships in your Day One plans.
Build student relationships from the start. This will cultivate a classroom community of mutual respect and trust that will lead to academic learning.
Your students need to feel safe and welcomed from the start or it’ll be a bumpy ride for the next 179 days… Here are 5 ways to build relationships with your students right away.
1. Greet Students
Make greeting your students as they walk into class a priority. This shows them that they are welcome, loved, and appreciated.
It will wipe away their morning anxiety and get them to focus for the day. You can have a greeting routine where students choose how the greeting is or just keep it simple.
2. Have a Morning Meeting
I love morning meetings! It starts each day with fun engagement and a way to build relationships. It shows the students that before we do any work, we focus on each other.
Morning Meetings show students they are important and they are a person, regardless of what kind of student they are. They learn to have fun at school and interact positively with peers.
3. Smile and Laugh
This one can be a tough one. Teachers are so stressed and under so much pressure this one is often forgotten. I’ll admit- I have to remind myself more than I should to laugh with my students.
Kids won’t know they are safe until you show them, and then you can build that relationship with them. A smile and a laugh will break brick walls!
4. Build Student Trust
I can’t tell you enough how important this one is! If there is no trust, there is no relationship, there is no learning. Students need to trust you that you care for them and have their best interest in mind.
Then they will accept what you have to say. Then they will learn.
They need to trust that you will stay consistent with your teaching, management, and composure.
5. Treat Students with Respect
It’s near impossible to give respect when you don’t get respect.
If you degrade and shame students constantly then they will refuse to listen and give you respect. If you encourage, empower, and engage students then they will.
You are the authority figure, but you’re not a tyrant. So take off your crown and allow students to see you as an empowering leader that grows and guides little people!
If you try these 5 things, I promise you it’ll make a world of a difference! I love building classroom community based on positive relationships that I work hard on and cultivate from day one.
It won’t be perfect by day two, or even day 50. It’s a daily practice that will lead to a class that works together for the growth of everyone.
