Building a Supportive Kindergarten Classroom Community
It is important to remember that education includes much more than academics. One of the most impactful things an educator can do is build a supportive and connected classroom community for all students. When you take the time to focus on community in the classroom, you will see its positive impact on everything students do.
Why is it important to build a supportive classroom community?
The classroom community is more than a place to explore and excel academically. Students are building peer relationships, learning to advocate for themselves, and engaging in experiences that will contribute to their view of the world.
A supportive classroom community also encourages students to build self-confidence and regulate their emotions when encountering new or challenging situations. Students feel supported and confident in how their peers and teachers respond if they make mistakes in a community that supports their social and emotional growth and learning.
When you create a supportive community, students will feel empowered to take risks in areas they otherwise would not. Students will confidently explore, experiment, and engage in the various classroom activities. Most importantly, the classroom will become a safe place where students can be themselves and engage authentically with each other.
The Neutral Classroom Decor Bundle includes over 27 sets and 700+ pages of classroom decor pieces to make students feel supported, seen, encouraged, and loved during the school year.
Look at the academic opportunities and consider how you can take advantage of them by adding social and emotional development. For example, a Social Emotional Learning Alphabet can be used during morning meetings for letter recognition and to reinforce social and emotional skills.
You can use these posters in many ways. Integrate them into your letter of the day or letter of the week study as a social-emotional learning component or use them during circle meetings and discussions. The posters can be hung as a complete alphabet in a special space in your classrooms. There are just so many powerful opportunities with this resource!
The most important thing is explicitly teaching skills you expect students to learn and use.
Resources for kindergarten teachers
A curriculum resource can help you implement social and emotional learning into your classroom. Resources are also an excellent foundation for your classroom community to become more heart-centered.
This sampler from the full Our Caring Community Curriculum is the perfect way to determine if resources will be helpful for your classroom community before making a total investment. It is a great way to determine how easily a curriculum can benefit your classroom! This sampler includes the most-requested activities from teachers that are building supportive and connected classroom communities.
A full curriculum for your classroom ensures that you will have an easy-to-use and implement plan with minimal prep-work required.
In this curriculum, you receive crafts, printables, hands-on activities, detailed lesson plans, mini-posters to accompany every lesson in each unit, anchor charts to accompany every lesson in each unit, optional text pairings for every lesson in each unit, separate SEL resources and displays, and more!
Help students become self-aware, responsible decision-makers while building a community that supports them.
Building a supportive community will benefit students as they navigate what it means to be successful in school and the overall community. By being intentional in the implementation of social and emotional learning, you will develop students’ confidence and self-awareness.
