Kick Off Your Year with a TEAMWORK Theme

A great idea for a yearlong theme that encourages cooperation and mutual respect is TEAMWORK. It is a great theme to kick off a school year and one that can be carried on throughout the year. Here are some ideas for implementing a Teamwork theme in your classroom.

On the first day of school, students are welcomed to the team with their own team hat. Each hat has our room number on it (13). I used self-adhesive felt numbers and attached them to the front of the hats. I collected pon poms and purchased some other props to promote Team Spirit. You can see the props in the picture above taken on the first day of school in 2005.

(I purchased the hats, felt adhesive numbers, pom poms, and spirit sticks from Oriental Trading.)

As a first week activity, students can pair up to create team pennants that can be used as decorations for your classroom or for a team bulletin board.

Students can brainstorm encouraging sayings for the pennants before they get to work.

Foam pennants and adhesive letters can be purchased from Oriental Trading.

You can also make color copies of the baseball cards or scan them and print them out in a smaller size for souvenirs.

You can also create baseball cards to show that each student is an important "player" on the team. I use Print Shop to create 8.5" x 11" baseball cards that can hang over each student's desk. On the side opposite their picture, students fill out information about themselves. The two parts of the baseball card are glued together to create the final product.

Download Baseball Card Print Shop Files (WinZip File)

(You must have WinZip to unzip the baseball card files)

Download Backside of Baseball Card (PDF)

***Note: You must have Print Shop Version 23 or Print Shop 3.0 installed on your computer to open the Print Shop files once you have unzipped them. The files will not open in Print Shop 2.0.)

Once you have opened the file in Print Shop, you can double click in the headlines to change the text. You will also have to delete the current picture and insert pictures of your students. I use the freehand crop tool in Print Shop to cut around the students' heads.

I scan the baseball cards and print them out in a smaller size on photo paper to use for rotating class jobs. Some of the jobs last year were even named to fit the teamwork theme like "Coach's Assistant" and "Team Manager."

At the beginning of the year, I always use my read aloud time or Team Meeting to read books about teamwork and cooperation with my class.

The links below will direct you to book lists that highlight teamwork and cooperation.

In preparation for our spring Open House, students all got their own Sports Illustrated Cover. I used Print Shop to create the Sports Illustrated covers. Students then worked in the computer lab at school to personalize their headings and captions. Below are the files you can use to create your own Sports Illustrated magazine covers.

Download Sports Illustrated Covers (WinZip)

(You must have WinZip to unzip the Magazine files)

***In order to view the exact cover that you see in the photos to the right, you will need to have the Sports Illustrated font installed on your computer. Here is a link to the website where you can get the font for free.

Get Sports Illustrated Font

***Note: You must have Print Shop Version 23 or Print Shop 3.0 installed on your computer to open the Print Shop files once you have unzipped them. The files will not open in Print Shop 2.0.)

Once you have opened the files in Print Shop, you can double click on the headlines to change the text. You will also have to delete the current pictures and insert pictures of your students. I use the freehand crop tool located the "Photo Workshop" section of Print Shop to cut around the students' heads.

During the year, many teachers have students honored as "Star of the Week." If you choose teamwork as your theme for the year, students can instead be called MVPs or All-Stars of the week.