First Week Back for 2015-2016

New year's resolution...I know, I know it's not the new year, but it IS a new school year.  My new school year's resolution is to create an environment that is more student led and full of inquiry.  So where to start you ask.  Start with some summer reading, Learn Like a Pirate by Paul Solarz, and a new Pinterest Board: project based / inquiry.

Now I have my outline time to get to work!  To start off we needed an activity to introduce this idea of "student led".  Thanks Runde's Room: Introducing Student Led Classroom

My directions: Each group gets 2 cups, 1 rubber band, and a piece of yarn for each student.  You have to move the top cup off of the stack, flip it over, and place it on the other cup.  Hint: You can wrap the string through rubber band (showing them).

 

It started friendly and then...FRUSTRATION set in!  

Team work became difficult with students being bossy and taking over.  We had to stop and talk about it before it got ugly :)  The conversation was about how you wanted to be treated in a team and how you were going to share ideas.  We did the "Give Me 5" technique for student to talk from Learn Like a Pirate and students shared what was working in their team.

Try, try again.

  

SUCCESS!!

Questions pondered -  Did you need the teacher to tell you how?  Did you need your team?  Was it easier when you shared ideas calmly and kindly?

Challenge:  Do it again with the cups right side up!  

Pull the top one out and flip it over.

They definitely got the point and showed it with their team using patience and persevering.

AND this was such a fun activity I hear daily, "Can we do the cup thing again?"

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