Cooperation Teaching Resources

Explore activities designed to help students learn cooperation skills and build positive relationships with their classmates and teachers. Each teaching resource in this social emotional teaching collection has been created by teachers for elementary and middle school teachers like you!

Explore anchor charts, worksheets and more to teach students what it means to cooperate, how cooperative behavior helps our relationships and more!

Curious about how to build a cooperative learning environment and wondering how it applies to kids in your classroom? Read on for some tips from our expert teachers!

What Does Cooperation Mean? A Kid-Friendly Definition

You know what it means to have everyone cooperating with one another, but how do you explain what it means to be cooperative? Let's start with a definition from our teacher team!

Cooperation is when people work together as a team to achieve a common goal. It means helping and supporting each other, listening to everyone's ideas, and taking turns.

Cooperation in the Classroom

Cooperation is an important part of social and emotional learning that promotes empathy and kindness as students learn to consider others' feelings and needs. Those benefits can have a major impact on your entire classroom environment.

Cooperation can be seen during group projects or activities where students work together. It involves sharing materials, brainstorming ideas and working towards a shared outcome. Cooperation also extends to recess and lunchtime, where students can play together, take turns on the playground, and resolve conflicts peacefully.

When kids are cooperating with their peers — be it in small group work, when lining up at the classroom door or during the myriad day-to-day tasks throughout the school day — you can also bring cooperative learning to life through the sharing of ideas, discussing concepts as a class, group problem-solving and plenty more.