Student of the week is a great way to build a community in your classroom. When students share about themselves, students are able to find commonalities between themselves and their classmates. Implementing student of the week often results in a new friendships and a more cohesive class culture. Learn all about how I implemented student of the week in my classroom using this Student of the Week packet below!
What is Student of the Week?
Student of the week is a great way to spotlight each of your learners. Each child in the class gets a turn that involves a week-long celebration. It can take as little as 5-10 minutes per day. During the week, you can grant the child special privileges and celebrate in a variety of different ways.
Why Teachers Love Student of the Week
Putting the spotlight on a different child each week helps your children get to know one another better and provides each individual with a special experience. Often, new friendships are formed when the kids learn they have things in common they didn’t realize before.
3 Tips for Implementing Student of the Week
Below are 3 tips for implement student of the week in your classroom from my Student of the Week packet. Get ALL of the tips and printables by downloading the packet!
1. Be Consistent
Teachers often start the school year with the best intentions, but as things get busy and time goes on, it is not always easy to maintain some of the special activities. Student of the Week means A LOT to the little ones so it is important that all the children have the same opportunities.
2. Keep It Simple
The easiest way to stay on top of things is to keep it simple. Avoid things like changing out a bulletin board weekly, committing to lunch with them or dedicating lots of class time to sharing things brought in from home.
3. Be Aware of Shortened Weeks
A child (or their parents) may feel slighted if their week falls on the week of Thanksgiving and they only get three days instead of five. Try to only schedule students for five day weeks.
3 Ideas for Celebrating the Student of the Week
Below are 3 ideas for celebrating the student of the week in your classroom from my Student of the Week packet. Get ALL of the ideas and printables by downloading the packet!
1. Share their Favorite Book
Ask the child to bring a favorite book from home. It can be a picture book or chapter book. They can read it to the class (especially if it’s a shorter book) or you can read it for them.
2. Offer Special Seating Options
Allow the child to sit at a special seat or the teacher’s desk. It’s so fun to see how they proudly sit in this seat throughout the week!
3. Invite Classmates to Write a Special Message
Have the class complete a page for the child during writing on one day. The pages can then be assembled into a book for the child to take home. You can get the printables to do this in my Student of the Week packet.
How to Do Student of the Week
Below are some simple directions for how to do student of the week.
1. Download the Student of the Week Packet
Scoop up the Student of the Week packet from my Clutter-Free Classroom Teachers Pay Teachers Store. It’s available by itself or as part of my classroom management bundle.
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2. Read the Tips and Ideas included in the Packet
This packet includes tips and ideas to help you implement student of the week in your classroom. recommend reading those before jumping to the rest of the resources included in the packet.
3. Determine How You are Going to Celebrate the Student of the Week and Print the Activities and Printables You Want to Use
The next step is to determine how you are going to celebrate the student of the week in your classroom. Are you going to offer a special seat, necklace, pencil or sticker? Which of the printables from the student of the week packet are you going to implement. There’s a lot to consider! Once you decide, print all of the resources you’ll need. Better yet, employ help from a parent volunteer.
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4. Make and Send out a Calendar to Families
Create and send home a copy of the scheduled calendar so families know in advance which week they can look forward to. It will give them plenty of time to pull materials together.
5. Send Home the Resources with the First Student of the Week
Take a peek at your calendar. Who is the first person on the list? Send that child home with all of the materials they need. Be sure to communicate a deadline with the students’ families with a buffer just in case a family forgets and you need to send home a reminder.
In closing, we hope you found this information about how to implement student of the week in your classroom helpful! If you did, then you may also be interested in these posts:
