20 ways to build classroom community and relationships

Any teacher who has taught for any amount of time will point to one key factor for teaching success.

Relationships.

Having solid relationships with your students will open doors. They’ll cause your students to listen to you differently. They’ll give you a level of influence that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

And influence is what we’re in this for, right? We got into teaching to make a difference!

Helping students build relationships with each other — student to student relationships — is crucial, too. That’s at the heart of classroom community. It answers these questions: “What do we stand for? Who are we? What is this school, this classroom made of?”

So … how do you build relationships? How do you develop classroom community?

Lots of teachers can give you their own answers to those questions.

But that doesn’t mean those are the only answers! Seeing how others build classroom community and relationships can give us new tools, new keys to unlock the doors to student success.

Here are 20 ways to build classroom community and relationships!

Many of these were suggested by educators through EfficienTEACH, our FREE collaborative project to share research-based and best practice-based teaching ideas. The goal: help teachers teach better and save time for what matters most … so they can get home quicker AND they’ll want to stay in the teaching profession! Find all of our FREE resources at EfficienTEACH.com.

Note: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you make a purchase with these links, I may, at no additional cost to you, earn a small commission.

A simple Google Form can do the trick. Just create a Google Form (or use this template) with a few simple fields:

• A short answer field with the student’s name (or a dropdown if you only have one class of students)
• A dropdown field with student’s class (if you have multiple classes in a day)
• A paragraph text field with what you learned about the student

Bookmark that Google Form or put a quick shortcut on the home screen of your cell phone. When a student says something you want to remember, pull up that form and fill it out — in less than 30 seconds probably. 

Then, every once in a while, open up the responses to your form. It’ll help you remember …

• students’ favorite things so you can use them as examples in instruction
• birthdays and important dates so you can celebrate or mention them
• things you can look up so you can follow up with students on them later

It’ll make you look like you have super-human memory! But really, you just have a good quick place to store things so you don’t forget.

2. Try a 2 minute relationship builder

Strategy shared by Kristin Daley

Looking for a way to connect to a student that is particularly challenging? Try the 2×10 strategy. For ten consecutive days spend two minutes a day getting to know that student. Make sure your questions go beyond just “how are you today?” and really spend time making a connection.

3. Get to know even more students with the 2×4 calendar

Strategy shared by Trisha Seyfert

4. Start a dialogue journal

Strategy shared by Taylor Halliday

Dialogue journals aren’t just for elementary students! Journaling is one of the best ways to get to know your students and provides a safe space for them to express themselves without speaking to the entire class. Want to learn more? Jennifer Gonzalez of Cult of Pedagogy talks about How Dialogue Journals Build Teacher-Student Relationships on her podcast and blog.

5. Make positive phone calls home

Shared by Nate Ridgway, author of Breaking the Blockbuster Model and co-author of Don’t Ditch That Tech

8. Create a Google Classroom banner quilt

Give each student a square blank Google Drawing and have them decorate it. Download each square and put them together to make a “quilt” or collage Google Classroom banner. Alternatively you can have each student add their name to a collaborative Google Drawing Classroom banner by making the file “anyone with link can edit” and asking students to add their name using word art. Don’t forget to revisit this activity when any new students join your class.

9. Tell me something good! 

From The Teacher Toolkit (www.theteachertoolkit.com)

In order to promote a positive, caring atmosphere in the classroom, devote a portion of class for   “Tell me something good’ from the teacher toolkit (You can even play this quick little clip from the classic Chaka Khan and Rufus song!) This exercise takes just a couple of minutes from a class period, but has long-lasting effects and sets an optimistic tone for working together. During this time, students can share any positive aspect of their life, from school, friends, or family. Taking time for the class to get to know each other promotes a positive environment, builds confidence, and creates a sense of community within the class. 

10. Make time for Morning Meetings 

Shared by Abbey Bobbett

Morning Meetings are a great way to get your day started! You can even have other “important” people on campus join your meetings (principal, custodian, admin assistant, etc.) once in awhile.

11. Break the ice!

14. Have students introduce one another

Shared by Jerry Meyer

Have students interview each other about themselves at the beginning of the year, then have them “present” or introduce each other to the class.  Make sure that everyone knows you are taking good notes, but don’t forget to refer to those notes often! 

15. Create an appreciation board

Appreciation is powerful. The more you spread it around, the more confident everyone becomes — and the more we realize the power in appreciation! An appreciation board provides a space for students to recognize each other. It can be a physical space, like a bulletin board or a spot to put up sticky notes. It can be a digital space, like the digital white board on your interactive display or a Jamboard file. Students can share specifics of why they appreciate someone else and include their name (or not). Then, decide what happens when a student recognizes another. Is it announced in front of class? Do you notify the appreciated student individually?

16. Use “peer praise” after projects and activities

Lots of teachers use peer feedback. It’s an effective strategy to get students more feedback than they can just get from the teacher. Plus, the different perspective helps students understand content and feedback better if they’re giving the feedback.

Peer praise uses the same concept — students interacting with students. But the focus is positive. After looking over something a peer has created, the student leaves a single simple statement of praise for something good that peer did in their work. Some versions of this:

• Trade papers with one classmate and leave one positive comment
• Leave student work on desks and have students circulate, leaving three positive sticky notes on each other’s work
• Pass student work down a row or column of student desks, writing something nice in the margins

17. Institute a system of classroom voting

From Our Class, Our Voice by Gina Ruffcorn

In her fifth grade classroom, Gina Ruffcorn’s students have a BIG say in how the class runs. One way Gina amplifies the voices of her students is through classroom voting. They vote on all sorts of “non-essential items,” as she puts it. They decide what the classroom lighting will be for the day. They get to help pick the class read-aloud book. Why? It helps students realize their voice has power. They get practice choosing an option and standing behind it. In the free video below — and in her book, Our Class, Our Voice — Gina shares concrete tips and strategies to get started.

18. Build relationships with classroom surveys

From Our Class, Our Voice by Gina Ruffcorn

How do we know what our students think and feel if we never ask them? When we know what students want in a classroom, they can be more productive learners. Plus, they get a say in creating the classroom community that they envision. When they realize their voice has the power to do that, they realize it can do even more. Fifth grade teacher Gina Ruffcorn, author of the book Our Class, Our Voice, uses three types of classroom surveys to empower her students. In the free video below — and in her book, Our Class, Our Voice — she shares those three types of classroom surveys and how to use them.

19. Instill responsibility with classroom jobs

From Our Class, Our Voice by Gina Ruffcorn

There’s only one of you, the teacher. But there are dozens of them! How can we keep up? By delegating responsibility to the students! In her fifth grade class, Gina Ruffcorn — author of the book Our Class, Our Voice — creates classroom jobs. Then the students choose weekly which jobs they’ll assume. It gives Gina more time to do what she, the teacher, can only do. But it also helps the students feel a new value and purpose in the classroom. In the free video below — and in her book, Our Class, Our Voice — Gina shares a list of 20 different classroom jobs that will instill responsibility in your students — and also lighten your teacher load so you can do what matters most.

20. High Five or Handshake? 

Shared by Gabriele Hughes and Trisha Seyfert

Greet your students at the door and let them choose the greeting. Make it even more personalized by creating your own class handshake. Have your students come up with a handshake together and use it to greet one another.

You can also give out High Fives all day long. Research shows the the power of a high five goes a long way! Check out The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins.