The back to school season is in full swing and many educators have already started their planning for the year. The first few days of school are great for getting students back into classroom routines and building community. The Juice can be a powerful tool to get the year started on the right foot, no matter what subject you teach.

Set Routines and Expectations

After the summer, it’s important to set routines to foster a positive and structured classroom environment. Setting high expectations at the beginning of the year can also encourage strong academic achievement and increase student engagement.  The Juice can be powerful to get students in the routine of reading each day.

Use The Juice as a Bell Ringer

Since the articles in The Juice are delivered each academic day and each article is only 250-270 words, The Juice is perfect  for a “bell ringer” or “do now” activity when students enter the classroom. 

In 15 minutes, students can improve their informational text skills in The Daily Juice while broadening their knowledge of the world around them.  To further extend student learning with The Daily Juice, at the end of each week, have students select one article to discuss or respond to with a written response. 

Assign The Juice as Homework

To encourage reading outside the classroom, The Juice can be assigned as a short daily homework assignment. The teacher portal allows educators to track student engagement and completion. 

Start your class having students share something they found interesting in The Juice the night before or respond to one of the questions attached to the articles. 

Provide Opportunities for Goal Setting

Providing opportunities for students to set goals at the start of a new school year can act as a powerful motivator for academic success. Goal setting encourages students to prioritize their tasks and develop time management skills, while also promoting a growth mindset.

The Juice can be used to help students set goals around reading. Whether students set goals to develop better reading habits or want to set a goal around increasing their literacy skills, they can monitor their progress on The Juice.  Students can see the total number of stories read and questions answered with the Lifetime Achievement badges. They can also monitor their average quiz performance over time on their dashboard.

Educators can also support students in their goal setting on The Juice by monitoring their performance on the Teacher Dashboard and conferring with students on their progress.

Build Community and Foster Collaboration

It’s important to spend some time at the beginning of the year building relationships with students and fostering community in a classroom. Students should be given the opportunity to get to know their classmates and collaborate with one another.

The Juice can be used to spark engagement and build community among students through discussion. Each article in The Juice contains a discussion question or thought prompt. Each day, there is also one question that is aligned to the SEL CASEL framework that is great for promoting discussion among students.

Here are a few ideas for using The Juice to promote community building and collaboration at the beginning of the year.

• Have students read The Brightside article together in small groups and respond to the thought question as an icebreaker to get to know each other better. Have students volunteer to share with the whole class. 

• Have students write a Juice-style news article about themselves. Ask them to pick an important memory and write about it in third person, keeping it under 300 words and including a title and image or infographic.

• Have students use the search to find an article of interest. In groups, have each student share why they selected the article and provide a brief summary to their group.