1.4 Classroom Identity: Part 1

Items Needed:

• Butcher paper/ Chalk Board and writing utensils 

Set the Stage:

Discuss groups with your students and write down their thoughts on the board.

• Ask students to name some of the different groups they belong to.
• • Groups include families, athletic teams, and neighborhoods.

Ask students what it means to be part of a group.

• Groups have the same goals, help each other, look out for each other, include each other in activities, have the same interests.

Discuss how the class is a group.

• All of you make up another very important group: our classroom group.
• We will work and have fun together during the course of the year.

Activity:

Discuss and circle the thoughts on the board that apply to the classroom group.

• Let’s look at the ideas we came up with for groups and discuss how these apply to our classroom group.

Have students discuss what things the classroom has in common. Write the answers on the board.

• Because we’re all part of the same classroom group, we have a lot of things in common. What are they?
• We’ll learn the same material this year; we’ll have to do the same assignments; we have the same teacher; we’re in the same grade; we go to the same school.

Draw a large circle around the commonalities and remind the students that this is their group.

• We’re part of this classroom and have these characteristics in common.

Discussion:

• Ask the class WHY it is important to work in groups?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages?