Abstract
This project was created in order to simplify and condense current community-building activities in hopes that teachers will use those lessons in their classroom. Currently, there are several community building books and activity packets that are accessible to teachers, but the lessons are too long and have too many components. In 2008, I graduated from the teaching credential program through Sacramento State. In those college classes, students were taught the benefits of building a classroom community. Upon entering the real world, new teachers found the focus was on test scores with very little time for extra subjects like music or art. Community building activities are not a priority given the other mandated teaching guidelines. It is appropriate to condense the community-building curriculum into smaller pieces, to allow teachers to use those activities anytime. Teachers are required to teach subjects such as math and language arts, for a certain period of time. Quizzes and tests that correlate with each core subject are scanned into a computer and sent to the school district office. Those assessments must be conducted by a certain deadline set by the school district. Community building activities that take an hour to complete are not realistic or easily obtainable in a school day. This project will take current community-building activities from books and activity sets and reinvent them to create lessons that can be used during anytime of the school day. For example, if students are done with a core subject lesson, a teacher can use one of these community-building lessons. Lessons can be used if there is an assembly or fire drill and there is not time to start the core subject lesson. These community-building lessons will help with teachable moments like a fight, lockdown or simple interruption. Teachers can use these lessons during shortened days when routines are off schedule and students feel disrupted. Furthermore, these community-building lessons are designed to be taught during a core subject lesson such as a Houghton Mifflin or Open Court lesson.Completion of this project was exceptionally satisfying. I took notes and ideas from the credential program, collected books and articles and recreated 20 lesson plans to help teachers build community in their classroom. Utilizing this project, they can also see what resources are available for different topics. Community building is very important to build self-esteem, kindness, empathy, sharing and acceptance in the classroom. Students can learn how to work with others in a positive environment where everyone is accepted and not ridiculed for their thoughts and ideas.