Building a Stronger Community in the First 5 Minutes of Class

The beginning of class can be one of the most hectic parts of a teacher’s day: Attendance needs to be taken, the slide deck needs to be on the screen, there’s an email that you probably should have read in the last class, a student is already asking about what they missed in class yesterday, and another student is asking about using the bathroom. It can feel overwhelming.

When I was a newer teacher, I felt like I needed to have everything under control the second the bell rang. I never wanted an administrator to walk in at the start of class and see chaos. I was bouncing around the classroom checking off all of the little things that needed to happen so the class could get to the “real” work of learning. 

Eventually, I realized the students were getting the least amount of my attention during those first few minutes. They would come into class wanting to tell me something. Maybe they had a big game the night before. Maybe it was their birthday. Maybe something happened at home and they just needed an adult to hear about it.

Too often, my response was some version of “Give me a second.” Then class would start because I was already “behind.” I would often not get back to them. I realized that I needed to make a change so that I could give students the attention they deserved. I adjusted my approach to those first few minutes of class, which allowed me to build genuine relationships with students and create a stronger classroom community.

DEDICATING 5 MINUTES AT THE START OF CLASS TO MY STUDENTS

I decided to reserve five minutes at the beginning of class for nonacademic conversations and check-ins with my students. Once all of the classroom housekeeping was done, I would turn my full attention to my students—not to their assignments or the book we were reading at the time, just to them.

During these five minutes, I walk around the room and simply check in with students, listening to what they have to say. Sometimes, students share important life events happening at home, and sometimes they just share about a new movie they watched the night before.

Whatever it is, these small conversations allow my students to share more of their personal lives with me and help us build the kind of trusting relationships that a strong classroom community needs.

While I’m checking in with an individual student, the rest of the class is checking in with one another. I let them know that they have five minutes to talk to their peers and connect. I only ask that everyone stay in their seat, as this makes the transition much easier when the five minutes is up. This means that my students are building a relationship not only with me, but with each other too.

If you are a new teacher, building this type of routine might feel counterintuitive. There is so much pressure to maximize the instructional time that giving away five minutes can feel irresponsible. But it isn’t. Those five minutes aren’t being wasted when they are spent helping students feel seen and connected to the classroom.

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR 5 MINUTES

It is important to approach your dedicated five minutes with a plan. It isn’t much time, and you want to make sure you and your students get something out of it. To do that, I follow four simple rules.

1. No classwork talk. This is an important rule. We have the rest of class to talk about assignments, tests, projects, studying, missing work, and everything else connected to school. This time is about students’ lives outside of school.

You can ask students what they did over the weekend, about the shows they are watching at the moment, about their sports they are playing, or about their family pet. You do not need to have profound questions. The goal isn’t to conduct an interrogation. It is to show genuine interest in the person in front of you.

2. Don’t try to talk to everyone. You only have five minutes. You are not going to be able to have meaningful conversations with everyone. I’ve found it helpful to have a few students in mind for each day to connect with and choose different students each day. It can be helpful just to move across the room over the course of the week.

You may also notice that a particular student comes to class and seems to need a check-in. That is a great reason to break your routine and go directly to that student instead. Just make sure you don’t lose track of who still needs your attention.

3. Don’t push students to share. Not every student is going to want to tell you about their life. That’s OK. Some students might give you one-word answers or shrug every time you check in. Keep giving them a chance without forcing it.

Trust takes time, and you don’t know what traumas they might be dealing with in their life. Students will share when they feel comfortable sharing. Your job is not to make them talk. Your job is to create a space where they know they can.

4. Protect the five minutes. It is OK if the five minutes occasionally becomes six. Try hard to prevent it from becoming four. Once you start cutting the time because you have lots to cover, it becomes easier to cut it for one class and the class after that. Eventually, the dedicated time vanishes and you are hurting the community you have worked so hard to build. There will always be something else you can be doing with those five minutes. Protect them anyway.

While the five minutes is the dedicated time to check in, the conversations don’t have to stop there. If a student told me on Monday that they had a huge volleyball game that night, I can do a quick follow-up on Tuesday to ask how the game went. The little follow-ups matter because they tell the students something important: “I heard you and remembered.”

Five minutes might not seem like much, but to a student who needed someone to see them that day, it can mean everything.