The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted almost everyone’s lives, and has left schools, teachers, and students to adapt, reorganize and shift what it means to learn in the classroom. As people increasingly learn and teach from computers and tablets, behind masks and away from their peers, the sense of classroom community has changed. This study seeks to understand how establishing a sense of community in the classroom has changed for both teachers and students by using an action research mixed-methods case study approach interviewing two teachers from different schools, surveying eleven 1st grade students, and interviewing seven 1st grade students from the same classroom in a southern Colorado elementary school. The research suggests that student’s sense of community may have increased, and that students defined community by their ability to help one another academically, socially, and emotionally, along with creating strong relationships in class. Students’ definitions of community compiled from the interviews and talking with teachers about how they establish community pedagogically gives schools, teachers, and emerging teachers insight into how to establish and grow community in a pandemic or post-pandemic world.