1. Meet and greet every child at the door while wearing your best smile. This sets the tone for the day and establishes a positive atmosphere. Using a child's name with that smile reminds children they are a valued participant in your program.

2. If you know ahead of time that you'll have English language learners in your afterschool program, try to learn a greeting or welcome in his or her native language. 

3. Actively listen to children. That means that eye contact is involved, as is body language that shows you are understanding their view and are interested in what they are saying.

4. Provide opportunities for children to get to know each other:

• Put some blank name tags in a box. Invite children to create a colorful name tag for someone sitting next to them.
• Invite each child to create a personal "coat of arms." Draw an outline of a crest and divide it into four sections. Duplicate it and distribute one to each child. Have children to fill in each section with their name, a favorite activity or hobby, a favorite book, and a dream or wish. Ask youth to talk about their crests within the afterschool group.

As Seen in Our Programs

Quality Advisors share exemplary practices observed in our member programs:

Create opportunities for participants to develop positive relationships. A Tree of Respect, such as the one pictured below, is a great way for kids to express respect, kindness, and gratitude toward each other. When participants feel appreciative of someone else in the program, they simply take a blank leaf, write a message on it, and hang it on the tree. Kids are also given a chance to read these notes to their peers. What a nice way to build a sense of community in your program!

Teach your participants how to interact with each other in positive ways. Creating values and principles for your program can help kids recognize traits that are important to incorporate in all of their relationships. A discussion with your kids about each of your program's values and principles is important as well. 

* This photo has been modified to protect the anonymity of the program.

Academically Speaking

Appropriate activities that support learning:

Building Cooperation

Counting Challenge

1. Participants form a circle, looking down with no eye contact.

2. One person at a time, but in no preplanned order or pattern, the group counts from one to ten.

3. If two people speak at once, start the challenge over.

4. If you get past ten, see how high you can go!

Alternatives: After trying it with no eye contact, try it with eye contact. Was it easier? Why?

Try counting by 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, etc. to make it more challenging and support math concepts.

Find more ways to build teamwork and support academics from the University of Missouri.

Understanding Misunderstandings

This fun activity from Odyssey of the Mind reinforces communication skills while improving vocabulary:  

"Because there are so many variables in communication, miscommunication easily occurs. Divide the class into four groups to create a humorous skit that involves a new language that they create, a miscommunication and its solution.   

• The cook had to use a fire distinguisher to put out a blaze in the kitchen.
• The doctor said the monster is just a pigment of my imagination.
• Good punctuation means to always be on time.

It Takes a Bit of Work

These quality practices take a bit of time or money to implement:

Research says...

The Search Institute has done an immense amount of work around what children need to grow into successful adults.  Their focus on the 40 Developmental Assets and motivation in children serves as a guide as programs work to create positive outcomes for children. Access their website here and learn more!

This piece of research will help you explain the importance of quality to your stakeholders:

This study, Specific Features of After-School Program Quality: Associations with Children's Functioning in Middle Childhood, examines the relationship between a quality afterschool program and youth outcomes between the grades 1-3. Researchers found that positive staff-to-child relationships are one of the top components of program quality. Detailed research showed that students in programs that rated more highly on a staff-to-child relationship scale noticed huge increases in math and/or reading testing scores over students in programs ranking lower in both quality and relationships. The authors conclude that children's positive relationships with program staff are beneficial at all ages studied.