Quick Check-In’s And Community Activities
As we engage with school leaders and teachers across the Country, most of which are in schools that have been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic for over 2 months and will continue to be closed for the unforeseeable future, the same sentiment keeps emerging: “We need to remember that this time is not only for academics alone but also for our kids to feel connected and safe and loved. We need to make more time to build community even if that means 10 minutes less of instruction.”
In our communication on April, 2020 we shared this post regarding the importance of community builders and the elements required to make them successful, as well as a few community building ideas that could be used with faculty and students.
We wanted to share with you another set of activities that may be helpful as you continue to build spaces where students and faculty feel cared for, honored, and seen. These have been compiled by Christine Raffo, a Roots ConnectED Coach, as well as by members of the Community Roots middle school staff who have been conducting Advisory both online and in person. They continue to keep the same format in their Advisory sessions, which always include:
Check-ins : typically short (in time) and require students to respond to a provided prompt. They are generally used to welcome all participants and to create space for all voices to be heard.
Activities : generally used for community building and connection. Activities will be a bit longer and will push students to collaborate, to share, to reflect, and to listen and learn from one another.
Closings : a way to connect ideas and thoughts that may have emerged from the Check-in or Activity.
You will see examples of both of these below. We hope that these are helpful to you and your communities.
Check In Examples
This or That: Students respond by selecting one of the two options. (ie: Spring or Summer)
Rate your order: Share 3 options and have students rate them 1 (favorite) to 3 (least favorite). Example: Billie Eilish, Da Baby, Drake
Emoji Hearts:
❤️I'm doing great
💙I'm okay
💛I'm meh
💚Things are tough; I'm struggling
💜I'm having a hard time and wouldn't mind if someone reached out to me
💔I'm in a dark place right now
Advisory Story: Whip around, each person adds 10 words (max) to continue the story, starting with a prompt, for example: I looked out my window and could not believe my eyes…
Weekend Hopes: One thing I hope for myself over this weekend is.. One thing I hope for others..
Vending Machine: If I were a vending machine at this moment I would vend…
Word prompt: Give one word and have them finish the sentence. Example: Lemonade is ___ OR Popcorn reminds me of ___
Letter Check-in: Share one word that starts with the letter ‘W’
Food Check-in: What did you eat for lunch yesterday?
Favorite Season: Students share favorite seasons and why
Student Led Advisory: Have kids come up with check in questions. Use one once a week
Connection Goal For your check in, tell us WHO you are going to purposefully reach out to this week that you haven’t talked to in a while, and HOW will you reach out to them? You never know who's day you can make even by sending a quick “Hello!” text! Example: grandma over facetime. Check in end of week if they did it or not
#tbt (throwback Thursday) - what is one memory you have from Advisory/class/ this year?
The best or worst part of remote learning is…
What is something you are looking forward to this summer?
Would you rather have unlimited international first-class tickets or never have to pay for food at restaurants?
Hogwarts House Self-Care: https://www.blessingmanifesting.com/2019/11/hogwarts-house-self-care-ideas.html
What house are you & what do you want to try for self-care?
Distance learning win or life hack for the week/month
Share either a “Distance Learning Win”: something great that you did while remote learning, or a “Life Hack”: something unique you figured out regarding remote learning that has made a big difference/has helped a lot. Example, student sharing that they end their day by leaving post-its on their computer screen, so when they open it in the morning they see their reminders
Activity Examples
Pet share: Students bring their pets (or some sort of stuffed animal or other object) and introduce their pet to the Advisory
Workspace share: Describe or virtually show your work space. What would you change about your space? What is working for you?
Scavenger Hunt Challenge: Post a list of 8 random items (a balloon, a jar of peanut butter, the playing card 7 of hearts, etc.). Assign point values to the items based on their obscurity. Students take a photo of the list and have 10 minutes to gather everything and come back at a certain time. Tally up points and declare a winner!
Challenges: Students come prepared to share things that have been difficult about online learning and problem solve together.
Play KAHOOT
Baby Photo Share: Each person brings baby pictures of themselves to share with the group
Song Lyrics: Break up into two teams on zoom. Pick a word (e.g. “love” or “red”). Each team has 30 seconds to come up with a song lyric or title with that word in it. Go back and forth until a team can’t come up with another one. While one team goes, the other is muted and watching
Mad Gab: Project a card and kids try to figure out what the card is saying. Students mute themselves, and then could unmute when they think they got it.
Would you rather: Prepare 8-10 questions, have students respond in different ways (in the chat, whip around, raising a thumb, in an online poll etc.) Would you rather
Cooking share: Students could take photos to share, share their favorite family recipe, give the group a cooking challenge, etc.
Figure it out: One person gets put in a breakout room alone. The rest of the group gets assigned some weird feature (e.g. they can only speak in questions, all their sentences have to start with the letter T, they have to touch their forehead each time they speak, they have to mention a color each time they speak, they have to address each person they speak to by their name, they have to do a strange hand movement at the camera each time they speak, etc.). Then the person has to come out of the breakout room and talk with everyone and try to determine what the person’s quirk is.
Scattergories: Create/find a list of topics to cover. Choose a letter for students and give everyone 5 minutes to come up with their list starting with that letter. Students share out, announce the winner each round.
Current Events: article Read and discuss a current event article, COVID 19 related or not, depending on where your Advisory/class is at and what they are bringing up.
Zoom around the room: Teachers announce a category/description of an item. Each person on the zoom call needs to go and find something that meets that description and bring it back to the zoom. The first person back with an item that fits the category wins. Students have the option to share what they brought back. Examples of categories:
Go find....
something red
a memento from childhood
something you made
Something with a handle
something you can wear
something that was a gift
something you eat
Something with an animal print
Something with batteries
Skribblio: Similar to an online pictionary that works well over Zoom. Make certain to set up a private room so that it belongs to your group otherwise it just puts you with random people on the internet.
For Meditation Minute: MyFitnessPal has a series of quick guided meditation videos. An example is the Gazing Meditation linked here. Click through to check it out. Scroll down on the right side to see the other options.
Bob Ross meditation!
Goal Setting: Making a weekly or monthly goal and decorating it.