Introducing a community circle at the beginning of the school year is a good way to begin to get to know your students and help them to connect with one another. I’ve collected a list of community circle prompts to get you started, but first, let’s talk about the basics of your community circle.
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Getting Started with Community Circle
To begin a community circle, the teacher and students sit together in a circle to share their thoughts or feelings about a given prompt. If you are going to incorporate a community circle into your routine, you might think about designating a place where you will gather when setting up your room arrangement.
Some classes participate in community circle time weekly, while other teachers find it more valuable to make it part of their daily routine. Most teachers set aside 10-20 minutes per session. When starting out you should model, later you can choose students to lead. When you begin, you might want to choose one-word answer prompts to help encourage students who are nervous about sharing. For example, you might ask, “What is your favorite color?”
The goal should be to move beyond one-word answers to ones that will help you learn more about each other and strengthen the sense of community in your classroom. When you reach that point, there is often an object that is passed as each takes a turn as the speaker, sometimes referred to as “the talking stick”.
The Community Circle has three rules:
- Listen Attentively
- Respect Everyone
- Right to Pass
Right to pass means that as you go around the circle answering the question, every student has the right to skip their turn at answering the question.
Here are some suggested talking prompts to get you started:
One Word Answer Community Circle Prompts
What is your favorite animal, season, or food?
How many people are in your family?
How many teeth have you lost?
Homelife Community Circle Prompts
What pets do you have? (If you don’t have a pet, what kind of pet would you like to have?)
What do you like to do after school or on the weekend?
What is one thing that you do to help out at home?
What is your favorite thing to do with your family and why?
What book did you read at home last night and what was your favorite part?
School Community Circle Prompts
What is one thing you like about our classroom?
What is one thing you learned yesterday or this week?
What is your favorite thing to do at school and why?
What is something you have learned to do very well?
What is something you hope to learn this year?
How would you make a new student feel welcome?
Which specials class do you like best and what is your favorite thing to do there?
Seasonal Community Circle Prompts
What is something you like or dislike about _____? (season)
What is a holiday tradition in your family?
What is one thing you did over fall/winter/spring break?
What If… Community Circle Prompts
What would you buy if you had $100 to spend?
Who would you want to meet if you could meet someone famous and why?
What is one thing you wish you could have or do?
If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
If you could be an expert at something, what would you choose and why?
In addition to building community relationships, the community circle format can be used for conflict resolution and class decision-making as the year goes on.
Resource Ranch
Rhonda is the author of Resource Ranch. Most of her classroom experience has been in early elementary. She has also taught Title I Reading, ESL, and gifted students. She is certified as a Texas teacher in grades 1-8 and as a K-12 librarian.
