Building a classroom community is one of the important things I strive for at the beginning of each school year. The first step I take to overcoming this hurdle is to establish a theme in the classroom that carries into our group names, job descriptions, and reward systems. Last year, I had a Minion theme. (I love the Despicable Me movies.) My classroom rules sign carried the theme with the font (LasVegas from
CopyFonts.com), colors, and graphics.
For our class jobs, I kept the colors and fonts from the Class Rules and modified some of the names, such as teacher assistants to Assistant Minions. Our team names depending on the time of day were fruits (Bananas, Bapples, etc.) or villains from the movies (Scarlet, El Macho, Nefario, etc.).
The students loved the Minion theme in the classroom and drew pictures to decorate the room with more minions. As much as they loved the theme, I have spent a few years focusing on this theme and it is time to move on. I am working on preparing a new theme for this year...superheros. (Mr. Hurd is a huge superhero fan and is training me well.) I'll add further information once I get more prepared on this.
What themes do you enjoy using in your classroom to create a classroom community?
