Building Community with Discussion Slides

There are so many benefits to building a possitive classroom community. In fact, it is one of the most important things you can do in your classroom! One way I build community is by using discussion slides.

Building community with discussion slides can be done in so many ways! Discussion slides are pretty simple, yet, they are so versitle. They are easily one of my favorite things to use in the classroom for this reason. Here are a few ways to build a positive classroom community using discussion slides:

Social-Emotional Learning

Social-emotional learning can sometimes be put on the back burner because we have so many educational things to cover! SEL is just as important as learning math facts or practicing reading fluency for a strong classroom communtiy. Discussion slides are a quick and easy way to fit in SEL into your week.

Some of the prompts that are great for SEL discussions include:

• Kindness means…
• I can be a good friend by…
• Courage means..
• I am proud of myself because…
• I can show a growth mindset by…

Not only can you learn SO MUCH about your students through these discussions, but they can also learn so much from each other! The best part is they can be easily added to your morning meeting, end-of-the-day routine, or as a conversation starter for alternatives to hurtful behavior you see in the classroom.

Grab the “Kindness means…” FREEBIE below! Add it to a morning meeting, pair it with a read-aloud, or use it with the Kindness Character Education resource. This discussion slide can fit where you need it in your classroom!

Morning Routine

One of the best things about discussion slides is that you can find a way to add them almost anywhere in your day. My favorite way to incorporate them is into the morning routine. Here is an idea of what that could look like for students:

1. Enter room and check the board for morning message
2. Complete tasks like put away supplies, make lunch choice, etc.
3. Get started on the daily morning work (Thursdays are discussion slide day)
4. Login to ther learning site (Google Classroom, Seesaw, etc.)
5. Click the link to the discussion slide and answer the prompt LIVE with their classmates

One of the neat things about discussion slides is that they are completely interactive (if you want them to be!) Students can see each other answer in real-time. This definitely takes some practice at first, but once the students get the hang of it, they are hooked!

Morning Meeting

There are so many ways discussion slides can be added to your morning meeting. Here are just a few of them:

• Discuss the slide from morning work
• Introduce or close a read-aloud with the slide that matches the theme
• Practice turn and talk using a discussion slide
• Introduce the character trait of the week or month
• Pair it with the Character Flipbook

Writing Block

Part of a positive classroom community is giving students an opportunity to be comfortable to shine! Writing can sometimes do the opposite. We have all had students who completely shut down or get the dreaded writers block when it comes to writing. Discussion slides can help solve that problem!

As a warm up excersise, use a discussion slide! Here's how it goes:

1. Choose a discussion slide that connects to your writing lesson
2. Project slide on the board
3. Instruct students to turn & talk using the sentence stem on the slide 
4. Ask students to share out some of their discussion and type it on the slide projected
5. Instruct students to write using the prompt in their writing journal

Even if there is not a slide that matches your writing lesson exactly, this is still a great way to get students started. Sometimes that is the hardest part! Taking the time to do little things like this will make a huge difference to reluctant writers and make them feel comfortable in your classroom community.

Other Ideas

 Discussion slides have so many ways you can use them with your students. Here are some other ideas, but there are many more if you get creative!

• Assign on Google Classroom, Seesaw, or any other online learning platform
• Use interactively where all students can edit at once
• Assign individually or in small groups of students
• Set as a background on Jamboard
• Sentence stems for turn and talk
• A prompt for journaling
• Support character education
• Practice online etiquitte when typing in the same document
• Students write on sticky notes and post them on the board instead of type

The options are endless on ways to use discussion slides! As you can see, there are so many benefits to using discussion slides in the classroom, but building community with discussion slides may be the best!

Pin image below to revisit this post later!