We know it when we feel it: School spirit warms a school, makes everyone smile, and brings people together. It makes everyone feel that they are part of something greater than themselves. That’s why school spirit is the basis of many student council initiatives.
There are many ways to foster school spirit, whether it’s through community service, school-wide initiatives, or just plain-old fun. If you’re involved in student leadership, check out these great student council ideas to help build school spirit.
1. Hold a Dress Like a Teacher day
Kids love to imitate their favorite teachers, so what better way than to host a Dress Like a Teacher Day at your school? Students dress as their most influential teachers for the day. Check out the amazing students and staff in this video for fun inspiration!
2. Plant a school garden
Recruit green-minded students and start a garden club with a focus on sustainability and community involvement. In spring, you can harvest early vegetables and pass out samples (a la Costco) in the lunchroom.
3. Engage in service learning
Inspire a sense of school spirit and generosity by bringing students together to do good work in your community. Check out these Meaningful Service Learning Projects for Kids and Teens.
4. Make team-themed spirit cowbells
Use craft paint and ribbons in your school’s colors to create custom cowbells for pep rallies and sporting events.
5. Produce a talent show or lip-synch battle
Invite your school to an event where they can showcase one of their talents. Encourage teachers and school staff to join in too!
6. Put on a “Top Chef” competition
Try a mini version of Top Chef by hosting a pie-baking or cookie-making contest. Recruit the Home Ec teacher to coordinate and choose judges. Film the competition, then stream it for students in homeroom.
7. Host a book donation project
Not everyone has access to Wi-Fi or e-books, and getting to the library can be challenging. Create a drop box at your school where classmates can donate books. Then, using a survey tool like Survey Monkey or Google Forms, reach out to families to find out who wants books and where to deliver them. Work with your advisor to create a plan for delivery.
8. Plan a design-a-mask challenge
One of our favorite student council ideas is a little outside the box. Challenge classmates to come up with a design for a mask that celebrates school spirit. Then, pick your three favorites. Create a video where you interview each classmate and ask them about their design and how it represents your school. If you have the funds, work with a local print shop to get the masks made, and sell them to raise money for your school.
9. Hold a trivia contest
Nothing brings people together like trivia! A trivia contest is a fun homeroom idea. Or you can hold it in the lunchroom to include a mix of people. To help get you started, check out 100 Trivia Questions for Kids in All Grades.
10. Put together a Senior Spotlight
Celebrate your seniors by broadcasting highlights of their greatest accomplishments on social media. Check out this sample senior spotlight questionnaire to help you brainstorm ideas. Choose a standardized format and add photos.
11. Hold a Community Day
This makes a great annual tradition that builds school pride and stronger neighborhood-school ties. Students, teachers, staff, parents, and alumni get together to participate in a day of service in the community, whether by cleaning up sidewalks, planting trees, visiting seniors, or serving at food banks.
12. Create a school cheer
Simple or complicated? It’s up to your school! Make your school cheer catchy so that years from now, it will still pop into alums’ heads and remind them of the good times they had at your school. This activity is a good opportunity to connect with your school’s cheer squad and collaborate!
13. Highlight your school’s diversity with holiday hallway decorations
Welcome classmates back from winter or spring break with holiday hallways. Decorate school hallways for different cultural traditions to educate students about different holidays around the world.
14. Host a Color Run
A Color Run is a healthy and fun way to show your school spirit. Check out 10 Reasons You Should Do the Color Run.
15. Make spirit shakers
Another super-fun activity from our favorite student council ideas. Use liter soda bottles and pony beads in your school colors. Add curling ribbons to the lid and ribbons around the middle of the bottle. Then use them at school pep rallies and sporting events.
16. Set up a virtual calming room
School can get stressful, especially during exams or big projects. Link guided meditations, online puzzles and games, yoga videos, and other fun ways to take a break to your school’s website.
17. Send staff thank-you letters
Draft personalized letters to school staff to thank them for being a part of your school community! Consider sharing this meaningful gesture as an activity for back to school, end of year, Teacher Appreciation Week, or Activity Advisor Appreciation Day.
18. Celebrate your school’s unsung heroes
Plan a day to honor the support staff in your school. In addition to teachers, give a special shout-out to the special-education aides, custodians, cafeteria workers, and other generous souls who help in so many ways.
19. Create a school mantra that shows your school pride
For example, We are Eagles. We are considerate. We are responsible. Engage with your school principal to craft a mantra that reflects your unique school culture. You could even have specific mottoes for each grade.
20. Put together a gratitude chain
Give each student an opportunity to write something they’re thankful for on a strip of paper, then link the strips together to form a gratitude chain to decorate the hallways of your school.
21. Surprise your rival school with positivity
Spread kindness and positivity to your rival school! Surprise them by decorating their sidewalks or hanging posters with positive messages during the evening or over a weekend.
22. Use a spirit can
Jointly sponsor a spirit can in partnership with the cheer team. During school events and game time-outs, student council members or cheerleaders lift the lid on the spirit can, signaling for the crowd to cheer. The higher the lid is lifted, the louder the crowd cheers. As the lid is lowered to the can, the crowd becomes softer. The spirit can holds T-shirts and candy, which can be thrown out to the loudest fans.
23. Design a school spirit stick
Use your creativity to create a spirit stick with your school colors. Use an empty gallon water bottle, a broomstick, beads, and ribbon. Award the stick on a revolving basis to the grade or class that shows the most school spirit throughout the year.
24. Create decades-themed spirit boards
Brighten up your school’s hallways with decades of color! Assign an era to each grade level. For instance, the 1950s for 9th graders, the 1960s for 10th graders, etc.
25. Host a photo booth
Design your own “frame” with your school mascot or colors and let students line up for photos. Post them on your school’s website (with permission, of course).
26. Host a school-wide Amazing Race
Looking for memorable student council ideas? Check this one out. It’s got lots of potential for getting lots of students involved. Students go on a scavenger hunt around the school, completing certain tasks. The last team to make it to each checkpoint is out.
27. Let seniors personalize their parking spots
Seniors finally get to park in the front row! Advocate for seniors to get designated prime parking spots and work with your school administration to allow custom decoration. Then, invite seniors to show their pride with a little personalization.
28. Have a student vs. faculty competition
Organize a game where students compete against faculty. It could be a basketball or kickball game—or even musical chairs. Hilarity is guaranteed!
29. Hold a door-decorating contest
Looking for student council contest ideas? Host door-decorating contests with themes such as holidays, homecoming, spirit days, or making the world a better place. Reveal the winning classroom over morning announcements and award the winners with prizes like pizza or an ice cream party. Check out these Awesome Classroom Door Ideas.
30. Hold a T-shirt-decorating contest
Challenge students to design a spirit shirt for your school. Feature all entries on a bulletin board in a common area or web page so that everyone can view the entries. Determine the winner by popular vote or by a committee vote.
31. Adopt a sister school
Find a school in another state, or even overseas, and collectively write letters to that school. Send your news and school highlights. Post replies where everyone can read them.
32. Share positive messages with a Kindness Rocks Project
Inspire positivity and kindness around your school community with a Kindness Rocks Project. Paint rocks with an encouraging word or message and scatter them throughout your school and community.
33. Create a community painting
During a stressful time for students like state testing or finals week, set up a large blank canvas in the common area along with paints in your school colors. Encourage students to “throw” paint against the canvas using paintbrushes and sponges. When the activity is over, you’ll have an amazing painting to display!
34. Celebrate your school’s history
Educate new students and introduce incoming students to the rich history of the school. Make weekly history announcements, include a history column in the school paper, or post a history board in the halls to feature influential teachers, founders, the school’s namesake, and outstanding alumni.
35. Hold an old-fashioned field day
Support your school’s field day activities by organizing and running different events and competitions. To help you get going, here are 60+ of the Best Field Day Games and Activities for All Ages and Abilities.
36. Brighten up someone’s landscape
Find out who in your community needs help with their yard work, and plan a day where students can sign up to rake lawns and bag the leaves. Your students may find that doing common yard work is a fun way to get everyone out of the house, spend time together, and help out your community.
37. Open a school spirit and supply store
Sell spirit wear so everyone can get decked out in your school colors. You could even create an online pop-up shop that makes it easy for families to buy school spirit wear from home. Use the proceeds to raise funds for your school or a charitable cause.
38. Showcase student art in a gallery
Use Google Slides or another display program to create a gallery where classmates can put their artwork on display. This easy-to-follow tutorial will help you get started. You can even add background music and host an opening reception event that you promote on your school’s social channels.
39. Choose an entrance song for spirit events
Get students fired up with a rocking song that gets them on their feet and cheering. You can make it a classic jam like “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor or something more contemporary like “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Or you can create an entire playlist of appropriate songs to use as entrance music to pep rallies, assemblies, and ceremonies. Check out these song tips from Education to the Core, along with other great ideas for spirit assemblies.
40. Paint a unity wall
Make all students feel welcome in your school with a unity wall that highlights what makes them unique and the characteristics they share. This unity wall at Hesperia High School in Hesperia, California, celebrates their kind student body and makes it clear that everyone contributes to a culture of kindness.
41. Make spirit bracelets
Another one of those simple but effective student council ideas. Make spirit bracelets using beads made in school colors and letters. Pass them out at lunchtime or at sporting events. Customize them for special events.
42. Compose a school song
A school song is a tradition that will create lasting memories for generations. If you have a talented student or teacher musician, you could even compose an original song. Already have one? Host a contest to update and refresh it. Then teach it to the student body.
43. Share compliment cards
Challenge your student leaders to pass out compliment cards with notes such as “You have great style,” “I love your smile,” and “You’re a great friend!” Include instructions on each card that direct the recipient to pay the compliment forward to someone else—creating a butterfly effect of kindness across your school!
44. Designate special dress-up days
One of those classic student council ideas but with a modern twist. Dress-up days, such as tie-dye day, beach day, jersey day, and favorite book character day, can be a great way for students to get creative and have fun. To increase participation and promote inclusion, be sure to incorporate ideas that are easy to do, such as favorite outfit day or school colors day.
45. Face-paint with your school colors
Recruit art students to showcase their talents by painting their peers’ faces with school colors. Schedule it on a pep assembly day to give students the opportunity to amp up their school spirit.
46. Hold a poster contest
Have different homerooms, school clubs, or teams make their best spirit posters to display in the halls. Present the winning one at a pep rally and reward the artists with small gifts like school key chains or rally towels.
47. Throw a back-to-school cookout
Get the whole school community together to get “fired up” for the school year. Having time to casually socialize with teachers and staff helps ease the back-to-school transition for students and families.
48. Host a game tournament
Engage students and foster a positive school climate by hosting a tournament or game night. At Cimarron-Memorial High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, they hosted a virtual Among Us game where participants were divided into different Google Meet rooms, each moderated by a student council member.
49. Decorate with chalk
Welcome back new and returning students and staff to a new school year or after spring break by decorating school sidewalks with positive messages. This could be a good opportunity to engage with art students to create an even more impressive display!
50. Come up with a yearlong theme
Collaborate with your principal to create a motivational school theme for the year, like “teamwork” or “respect.” Integrate the theme into as many aspects of your school as possible throughout the year. For example, introduce the theme at your back-to-school night and incorporate it into your school newsletters throughout the year. Read this great article from Education World on how to engage the whole school in a unified, yearlong theme.
51. Make DIY pom-poms
This is one of many fun moneymaking student council ideas. Make and sell paper pom-poms before your student athletic events to fill your gym with school spirit! Keep the cost low—25 cents or so—to make them accessible to everyone.
52. Start a mentoring program
Pair older students with younger students for the duration of the year. “Buddies” can invite each other to lunch (on specially designated days), write notes (monitored), and team up on field day competitions. Near-peer mentoring, with students just a grade or two apart, can be a big benefit for both students.
53. Host a school movie night
Spread a king-size sheet or painter’s tarp on the side of the school to project a movie, and invite students and their families to bring lawn chairs or blankets. If the weather’s cold or rainy, turn your school gym into a movie theater and spread out the gymnastics mats for seating.
54. Spread cafeteria compassion
Write kind notes to your cafeteria staff and give them to students who are standing in line for lunch, along with directions to pass the note to a cafeteria staff member. With minimal effort, your whole student body can overwhelm your cafeteria staff with compassion and gratitude!
55. Host a senior breakfast
In the last week of school, host a senior breakfast to celebrate students’ graduation and give them a positive send-off. Be sure to offer decaf coffee—they’re already stoked enough!
56. Organize a tutoring program
Recruit classmates who are willing to tutor other students. Create a schedule and share it with families and students, so they can drop in and get help on a variety of subjects.
57. Make spirit bracelets
Another fun DIY project! This tutorial will teach students how to make simple braided paper bracelets using school-colored paper. Tackle making them as a class project. Or encourage a school club to make them as a fundraiser.
58. Give out honorary school diplomas
Advocate to begin an honorary school diploma program, recognizing people in the community—living or historical—who have made outstanding contributions to the school or have noteworthy achievements that align with your school values. A student council can help to organize the program with support from administration and serve on the selection committee, nominating awardees and writing the citations.
59. Do an end-of-year graduation walk
Graduating high school seniors walk the halls in their caps and gowns to inspire younger students to go the distance.
60. Hold a board game costume day
Challenge your student body to show up with this fun idea. Invite students to dress as their favorite board game or card game character (e.g., an Old Maid, the Queen of Hearts, a Twister board).
61. Join the 30 Days of Service Challenge
What better way to build school spirit than by doing good works together? Download our free 30 Days of Service Challenge checklist and challenge kids to complete tasks such as Write a Letter to a Deployed Service Person or Collect Books to Donate to the Library. To up the ante a little bit, make it a competition between homerooms.
62. Set up a flash mob
Flash mobs are a great way to bring students together. With just a few guided practices, they can be part of a fun and special event. Check out the steps of how to organize a flash mob here.
63. Paint a unity wall
Looking for student council ideas that incorporate creativity and school spirit? Celebrate the diversity and friendship in your school with a custom mural of student handprints. Allow each student to pick their favorite color and add their mark to your school spirit.
64. Show pride in your school’s appearance
Organize a school cleanup day. Have kids collect trash and recyclables, weed the gardens, and clean off sidewalks and garden areas. Not only will this event help spruce the place up, it can teach students the value of gratitude and stewardship.
65. Get eco-friendly
Launch eco-friendly initiatives like a recycling drive or a campaign to reduce plastic use. Encourage environmental responsibility within the school community by putting students in charge.
66. Set up photo ops
Let students ham it up in front of an inspiring wall like this one. Not only will you get some adorable photos, you’ll be reinforcing an important school value: kindness.
67. Celebrate your school’s history
Start up a school history project to build school pride. Have students research and present the history of their school and local community, possibly in collaboration with other member schools. Set up history displays throughout the halls to remind students they are part of something bigger.
68. Sponsor a Wacky Sock Day
As part of spirit week, have a Wacky Sock Day! Encourage students to get creative and wear the craziest combination of socks to school that day.
69. Set up testing week support stations
This is one of those student council ideas that can really have a positive impact on the student body. During testing weeks, set up snack and drink stations with donated items. Paint and display encouraging posters around the halls. Organize fun activities and games during lunch and recess (for younger kids).
70. Host cafeteria karaoke
A positive school environment celebrates everyone’s talents. Give your students the opportunity to bust out a tune at lunchtime by setting up a karaoke slideshow.
71. Sponsor a fun run
If you’re looking for student council fundraising ideas, try a fun run that combines fitness and school spirit. Student council members can divvy up the responsibilities. Get the word out on social media and with posters and flyers. Encourage students to participate individually or as part of a team. Hold a fun run T-shirt design contest and let students create their own shirts from the winning design.
72. Do birthday shout-outs
During morning announcements, have a member of student council wish a happy birthday to students born on that day. Be sure to include students whose birthdays were the previous weekend on Mondays.
73. Have a little fun with icebreakers
Students are more invested in their school community when they have a genuine connection with other students. Encourage students to broaden their social circles with icebreakers. Whether you use them in homeroom, in the cafeteria, or at after-school events, the more you build connections, the stronger your student body will be.
74. Build a wall of kind words
Combine kind words with fundraising in this fun activity. At lunch and during passing periods, have student council members set up stations to sell paper “bricks” for $1. On their bricks, students can write a compliment or a shout-out for another student. Display the bricks in the cafeteria or hallway, and watch the brick wall grow throughout the week. The student council can use the funds to donate to a cause, put on an event, or buy supplies for future activities.
