7 Simple Ways to Build Meaningful Connections with Your Students 

You’ve probably heard it over and over…. “Build relationships with students to make classroom management easier”. 

But have you ever wondered just how to do that?

Here are 7 SIMPLE actions you can start taking today in your classroom to build those connections with ALL of your students. 

This image shows a teacher at the front of her classroom with several students. They are all working hard at writing something on the whiteboard behind them. The text at the bottom of the image reads "7 Simple Ways to build relationships with your students".

1. Greet Students at the Door 👋

Think about how the day starts for your kiddos. 

An easy way to consistently pour into your relationship with students is to start with morning greeting choices. 😊

Use a simple “Good morning”, high five, or hug to remind each student that today is a new day and you are excited to spend it with them! 

Plus, students LOVE getting to choose how they greet you!

This image shows a bunch of morning greeting options in colorful circles. You can see "Hug", "Wave", "Smile" and "Dance" as some of the options. The circles are posted on the back of a classroom door.

Use these tropical morning greeting choice posters to display the options your students can choose from each morning. 

This simple action goes a long way in establishing positive energy from the start of each and every day. 😍

2. Share Your Stories 🌼

Relationships are a two-way street. Your students are excited to get to know YOU as well. 

Sharing stories about your own experiences can help develop mutual trust. 

And, it’s a great way for students to realize they have some things in common with you apart from the classroom you share. 😊

An easy way to start this is to share some fun facts about yourself, maybe with some pictures, at the beginning of the school year. 

Then, don’t be afraid to share fun weekend plans or sports games you are excited about to help your students get to know you too! ❤️

3. Ask About Their Lives 🤗

Chances are, you won’t have to start this conversation 😂

Students LOVE talking about things they enjoy, sharing their weekend plans, and telling you story after story. 

Find some time in your day to give your students your full attention and ask some follow-up questions or check back in after their soccer game or dance recital to see how it went. 

Showing you care about their interests is a great way to build relationships with students. 💪

Then, you can take it one step further to incorporate the things they love doing into your lesson examples. 

Need a math problem? Create one about the number of goals Kennedy scored at her latest soccer game. 😉

4. Create Check-ins & Traditions 🗓️

Connected families often have some sort of traditions. There’s often something, whether that is regularly sitting down to eat a meal together, watching the same movie every Christmas Eve, or making birthdays a big deal. 

Why not bring that into your own classroom culture? 

Establish a time during your school day (or week) when you always do the same thing. 

     🌟 Give weekly shout-outs to fellow classmates for being kind, persevering, etc. 

     🌟 Host a daily morning meeting to get on the same page and get to know each other better 

     🌟 End the week with asking students to share the best part of their week

     🌟 Celebrate birthdays by giving the student space to share something important to them 

     🌟 Begin each day with some “Connection Time” where students can play card or board games, create with PlayDo, or other hands-on activities. 

5. Celebrate Success 🎉

Your students work SO hard in and outside of your classroom. 

Letting your students know you see how hard they are working is a great way to continue building relationships with students. 🥰

     ➡️ This could be a super informal weekly shout-out you do to highlight the hard work done by other students. 

     👏 You could let your students in on the fun by creating a way for them to nominate their classmates for acts of bravery, kindness, perseverance, and working hard. 

🏆 Create a more structured tradition of passing out awards to your class a couple of times throughout the school year. 

You could use a free template like this one on Teachers Pay Teachers. 🙂

Display student work on a Wow Work display to show off their hard work to each other and other adults who come through your classroom. 

This image shows a bulletin board with a WoW Work display. There are lots of pieces of paper that all say "Amazing Work Coming Soon" that are placeholders for each student.

If you are interested in a ready made, print-and-go Wow Work display like the one above, check them out in my TPT here!

🔥 Don’t forget to celebrate your students without the crowd too. Sometimes a small sticky note or quiet conversation means more than all the fanfare. 

6. Provide Opportunities for Teamwork 🤝

Encouraging your students to work together helps to build a sense of community within your classroom walls. 

Start the year off with Stem challenges, funny movement breaks, and some class games your students will be asking to play again all year long. So, be careful what you pick 😂

Here are some EXCELLENT brain break games to get you started! 

As you provide more and more time and space for your students to become a team and work like one, relationships will only deepen. 

7. Provide Leadership Opportunities 🪴

As our relationships deepen, so does our trust, and often, our responsibility. 

Find ways to give your students chances to be the leader to show them you value and trust them. ❤️

This could be something as simple as choosing a student to be line leader for the day or giving your student a chance to teach the rest of the class for part of a subject. 

Explore what this could look like based on your students’ ages and their interests! 

No matter how you choose to build relationships with students, it’s really your heart behind it that counts

Your students know when you are genuinely interested in them, and they LOVE that. 

Push into your strengths, learn more about what makes your students tick, and settle in to enjoy the school year ahead. ❤️

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