How to Make the Most of Your Homeroom Period

Motivation

Good morning teachers. I want you to choose your number from 1-26. Hold on to that number since we
will play Deal or No Deal, whoever chooses the brief case that contains 1 million dollars will win a 100
peso load. Are we ready?

Now I want you to sit comfortably and think of your homeroom period during the first week of classes.
I’m going to give you 30 seconds to look back to that time. After that, let’s hear your experiences.

Some or most of us have dreaded homeroom period during the first week of classes. In fact, it even came
to the point when I was anxious to get into our homeroom because I have no idea how to deal with my
students. “Macheck lang man ko attendance dason matulok sa screen magsound na ang National
Anthem.” “Magprayer kami daw nd ko man mafeel nga sincere akon mga students kay gabasa lang sila or
garecite sg prayer nga naanaran nila” or “Sulit-sulit naman lang ni nga routine. Pwede indi na lang ko
maghomeroom?”

This is how I felt as a teacher so what more ang na feel sang mga students? I have nothing to look
forward during our homeroom period and I can tell that my students feel the same way. Their attendance
is fluctuating but usually jutay lang gid ga attend homeroom. With this, I became obsessed with the idea
on how to make our homeroom period meaningful and interactive.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert or claiming to be one in this kind of topic. In fact, this is my first year of
teaching but with some inspiration that I picked from my fellow teachers and a bit of research, I was able
to came up with this. This is my own preferences and I’m not saying that this is the only method that
works. I am sharing this because maybe I can give you a little bit of idea and you can incorporate this on
your own homeroom style.

Why Homeroom is Important?

The beginning of your day should start off the best way possible, right? So, just what is the best way? If
you ask some students, they would say things like these: insert response from survey

To simply say it, our students want to have a homeroom period that is far different from an “actual class.”
It is a place where they can check in and talk to friends at the start of the day. Teachers can also offer
guidance and information to help them navigate the day. Homeroom is also the perfect place to celebrate
student success, play games, and mark special occasions. As teachers, it would give us the chance to
provide our students with a safe and supportive homebase.

Here are a few tips on how to use homeroom to build a culture that's inclusive, supportive, and fun.
An article on the website Shmoop provides ideas to teachers on what they could do during homeroom,
including a game that could be played. Small activities like these would support young people’s ability to
work in small groups well. This could be done maybe once a week.

Mark Fischetti of Scientific American, also notes that we all need new friends sometimes in our lives and
who knows, the person you meet now could last forever. So having homeroom in the mornings would
give students a chance to get to know more students in the school who could in return help them with
something they are struggling on or just be there to be new friends. Advisories and homeroom periods
provide students an opportunity to interact with teachers and one another in a non-graded atmosphere that
isn’t focused on either content or assessment.

Besides the funny talk shows and interviews that students create for the morning announcements,
important information that is distributed, and missing it could be crucial. Deadlines, due dates and other
information regarding clubs, sports, or honor society are covered in the announcements, and missing them
is not good. Also, the announcements allow for insight into what’s happening in our community. Having
homerooms would benefit the school as a whole because teachers would have the opportunity to
distribute the same information so that everyone is informed easier, faster, and are on the same page.

Homerooms in the morning would allow for a greater good of not just the students, but also the teachers.
It would support teachers in getting more planning time, and students to get a warm-up period to help get
ready for the day. A compromise to make this happen would be to create this plan for only 2-3 days of the
week instead of every day so, other days, class can start on time with first period and not take up much of
the day.