When summer break ends, the last thing students want to think about is school. Thankfully, the comforts of home can facilitate a smooth transition from vacation to education. To that end, here are some tips to help students feel comfortable, happy, and stimulated.
- Have students create a code of conduct. Through a set of norms, students can shape the classroom according to their needs. With a student-driven code of conduct teachers can also ensure students care about following and enforcing the rules.
- Organizing desks into groups facing each other to facilitate daily group activities. This encourages friendships, making students look forward to class so they can see their friends.
- Ask students to bring a keepsake from home to decorate the classroom. Whether it be a toy figurine, a signed basketball, or even a beanbag chair, if it’s something that reminds them of home, it will make students feel relaxed. Plus, if students engage with each other’s mementos, they get to become a part of each other’s homes.
- Use the multiplayer activities available on the Smile and Learn App, such as Connect Four, Checkers, or 3D Chess, to encourage teamwork and positive relationships within the classroom.
- Accommodate students’ home lives. A student’s home life may not support a certain school or work schedule. Keeping in touch with students and giving them a different lunch time or homework extensions will allow them to stay caught up.
- Send a welcome email. The transition from vacation to the classroom starts when students realize school is looming on the horizon. A preparatory email to student families, including the details of the above tips, tells students they can anticipate rather than dread going back to school.
If you found any of the above tips useful, consider giving the Smile and Learn app a try for free below. With it, students can improve academic competencies as well as visuo-spatial skills, emotional intelligence and much more. The app accommodates students with special needs, is available in six languages, and functions offline.
If you haven’t tried our educational platform yet, you can do so through the following link.
