One of the most important ideas to establish in a classroom is the belief that the classroom is a community. Students need to feel connected to each other and to the teacher. This helps everyone in the classroom get along and try harder to understand each other. One way to make a classroom feel like a community is to have students develop classroom rules with their teacher. This makes students feel like their voices are being heard and that they have some control and responsibility within the classroom. Another way to make students feel like a community, and the way I am focusing my blog post on, is for students to bring in pictures of their neighborhood. Each student brings in a picture of what he/she believes represents his/her neighborhood. It can be a picture of where he/she lives,
a picture of the street he/she lives on, a picture of the neighborhood park. Whatever the picture is of, it is meant to represent what the student believes to be his/her neighborhood. Once all students have brought in a picture of their neighborhood, they tape the pictures to the wall so everyone can see them. This is meant to spark a discussion about what is similar and what is different. How many students live in a house? How many students live in an apartment? Does anyone live on a farm? Do students live near each other? How many students see their neighborhood as just their home? How many students see their neighborhood as more than their home? All of the questions can be asked by or posed to s
tudents? The important thing to remember when trying to build a community in a classroom is that students need to recognize how they are the same and how they are different. Both similarities and differences should be celebrated. Similarities help students connect to one another and differences help students learn from one another. Neighborhood pictures are often a good way to show students that in many ways they are alike and when they are different that is not a bad thing but rather makes their classroom community more interesting.
One of the most important ideas to establish in a classroom is the belief that the classroom is a community. Students need to feel connected to each other and to the teacher. This helps everyone in the classroom get along and try harder to understand each other. One way to make a classroom feel like a community is to have students develop classroom rules with their teacher. This makes students feel like their voices are being heard and that they have some control and responsibility within the classroom. Another way to make students feel like a community, and the way I am focusing my blog post on, is for students to bring in pictures of their neighborhood. Each student brings in a picture of what he/she believes represents his/her neighborhood. It can be a picture of where he/she lives, 
a picture of the street he/she lives on, a picture of the neighborhood park. Whatever the picture is of, it is meant to represent what the student believes to be his/her neighborhood. Once all students have brought in a picture of their neighborhood, they tape the pictures to the wall so everyone can see them. This is meant to spark a discussion about what is similar and what is different. How many students live in a house? How many students live in an apartment? Does anyone live on a farm? Do students live near each other? How many students see their neighborhood as just their home? How many students see their neighborhood as more than their home? All of the questions can be asked by or posed to s
tudents? The important thing to remember when trying to build a community in a classroom is that students need to recognize how they are the same and how they are different. Both similarities and differences should be celebrated. Similarities help students connect to one another and differences help students learn from one another. Neighborhood pictures are often a good way to show students that in many ways they are alike and when they are different that is not a bad thing but rather makes their classroom community more interesting. 
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