do you have any ideas for community builder ideas for a classroom?

Answer 1

www.charitychecks.us is a great way. Go to the site and click on Charitable Literacy. It really is wonderful. Email Victor Dorff if you have any questions

Answer 2

I would recommend having morning meetings on a daily basis. This works wonderfully for any grade, K - 8, with appropriate age modifications. "The Morning Meeting Book" published by Responsive Classroom is a great resource for how to use the morning meeting for maximum effectiveness. If you don't have time for regular morning meetings, you can still use some of the group games and activities suggested in the book.

One activity that's not from the Morning Meeting Book, but which I like, is having the kids write three goals for themselves for the school year. Then they share one of their goals with the class. Then you ask the rest of the class to come up with ideas of how they can help their classmate achieve his/her goal. It can be an academic or personal goal. For example, a student might say that his goal is to concentrate better during silent reading. Other students can help him by not distracting him, by suggesting good books, by giving him a hand signal when they see that his attention is wandering, by not letting him distract them, etc. I've never tried this, but you might have "goal updates" on a monthly basis, where kids evaluate how well they are achieving their goal, or possibly change their goal. Then the whole class can discuss everyone's progress - it becomes a class project to help each other.