I've Got a Feeling

What a great kick off to the year!
As a brief reminder, I am in a new school.  We are a small school with 50 students that is housed inside another school.  The school is only in its second year.  Most of the students are new and the staff is new as well.  What to do on the first day?  Team building!

I think team building is an important way to begin every year, but this year it is especially important.  We are keeping the kids together today and tomorrow and then we will divide them up into advisory periods for the experience/ pbl learning environment we have once we know the kids a little bit better.

Team building activities that we used include:

• Name Game.  Come up with an adjective that begins with the first letter of your name and an action to go with the adjective.  We went around in a circle introducing ourselves.  This really helped kids remember names better than normal introductions.  We did this as a whole school, and next year I think it would be better in smaller groups.
• Play-dough People.  Pick an object to represent yourself and shape it out of play-dough.  Everyone then went around and explained why they created what they did.  This was done in small groups and worked really well.  I didn't lead this activity, but a co-worker said all of the kids were really into it and shared some really great things.
• 2 Truths and a Lie.  Kids write 2 true things and one made up thing on a card.  Then they share the three items and the kids guess which is false.  I gave an example before I gave the kids a few minutes to work on their own responses.  We then went around the circle and kids guessed which was false by holding up 1, 2, or 3 fingers.  This worked really well for background knowledge.  Some kids shared some really personal things.  In the future I would have them all share with an elbow partner first and then open it up to the whole group because due to time constraints some kids did not share.  I also think this would have encouraged deeper discussion between a small group of students.  
• A variety of physical team building games such as pass the noodle, pass the hula hoop, etc.  These were a lot of fun and broke up some of the more personal sharing times.  It also allowed the kids to work as a team.  In our learning environment this is going to be really important.
• Letter to a teacher.  At the end of the day we had the kids write a letter to a teacher (or teachers) to share some info with us that we should know.  We recommended things like successful past experiences, topics they were interested in exploring, etc.  These letters were really great and also serve as a great baseline writing sample.

So I am exhausted but happy.  How do you build a team in your classroom?  Do you have any favorite team building activities you use?  I'd love to hear everyone's ideas!

Communist Lesson Plan

I love a good red scare as much as the next guy - well, teaching about one at any rate.  To begin the lesson I always start with a game of Communists - a popular party card game also known as Mafia.  This game causes students to understand the weak evidence used to accuse people of communism in the 1920s or 1950s.  It also familiarizes students with people involved and their actions (or lack-there-of).
Materials and Roles
A deck of playing cards.  Remove the jokers and aces, 2 queens, 3 jacks, and as many numbered cards as you must to equal the number of students in your class.

I play the narrator and act as a moderator throughout the game.
Whomever gets a king card is a communist
Whomever gets a queen card is a member of the HUAC committee
Whomever gets a jack card is Edward Murrow (or other journalist)
Whomever gets a numbered card is a citizen

Playing the game
Each round consists of a day and a night.
Night
The narrator announces that it is night time and has everyone close their eyes to go to sleep.

Next, the narrator tells the communists to open their eyes and acknowledge their fellow members. They kill off one of the other players by silently gesturing to indicate their target. Then the narrator instructs the communist members to "sleep" (close their eyes again).

Now the HUAC members will open their eyes and point at a suspect.  The narrator nods or shakes their head to indicate if the person is a communist.  Then the narrator instructs the HUAC members to "sleep" and the journalist to open his or her eyes; he or she points at someone to protect, then goes back to sleep.

Day

The narrator tells everyone to wake up. Unless the journalist and the communists selected the same target a murder is announced, sometimes with a little narrative detail. For example, "In a very sad twist of events, Billy was run over by a car with a hammer and sickle bumper sticker last night."  This player is "dead" and may no longer participate in the game in any way.

During the daytime phase, the players deliberate over which student is a suspected communist that they wish to try for treason. Once nominations are made, the narrator administrates an election between the nominees, in which all players vote.  Whomever receives the most votes is tried and electrocuted for treason.

Because players have less information and more freedom to deliberate, during the day, the day phase tends to be longer than the night phase. I usually have a five minute time limit for day rounds.

Ending the game

If the citizens discover (try for treason) all of the communists, the citizens win.

If the communists outnumber the citizens, the communists win.

I encourage citizens to listen for "things that go bump in the night" or to make wild assumptions and associations to 'discover' the communists.  Students generally get really into the game and require very little encouragement to participate.  We always end with a discussion about how decisions were made by both parties and how few facts were generally used in the trial of the suspected communists during the day.

If you are covering this lesson, you may also be interested in the dots game where students are given a card with a red or green dot on a card and must make groups without any 'red dot' members despite keeping their cards a secret.  This was a wonderful idea that @ColoradoHowe shared in a #sschat on active learning.  Also, be sure to check out @gregkulowiec's blog about teaching Marxism through Rock Paper Scissors.

I would love to hear how others also cover this topic!

Review Games

Reviewing material prior to an exam can sometimes mean I spend long hours making flashy presentations and modifying test questions so that the students can review material for the duration of class.  This type of review can be great to really help focus students on specific data I want them to hone in on.  However, there are a few different review games that I have been using for a while now that are more engaging, cover more material, and are student created.


Both review games operate on the same premise.  Students are given a list of topics that need to be reviewed.  Students then create a specific number of review questions and answers.  In class the next day students quiz each other using their questions.  Pretty simple.

For Tic-Tac-Toe Review, students will need to create nine unique questions with answers prior to class.


To begin, students should take a piece of notebook paper and fold it into thirds the long and short ways so that when the paper is unfolded there are nine sections to the paper.
The upper right corner is used for a heading and a final count of games played and won.  The additional eight squares are each for a different game of tic-tac-toe.  I have the students write vs. in each square as well to remind them to write down who they play.
Once students have created their boards, they are free to play each other. 
 The general rules include:
1. Find a free person - no waiting to play friends - and write the person's name on your paper
2. Play one round of rock-paper-scissors to determine who will go first.

3. The first student decides where they would like to place an 'x' or an 'o'.  Each spot on the tic-tac-toe board corresponds to a different question the student created.  The second student asks their 
 numbered question that corresponds with the space.  If the first student answers the question correctly, they take the square.  If the student gets the question wrong, the student who asked the question gets the square.
4. Questions that a student deems unfair may be brought to the teacher to see if they are appropriate or too nit-picky.
5. Games can end in a win, a loss, or a tie.  Students should write the outcome on the bottom of the square and move on to play another game.  Students cannot play the same student twice.


Jenga is very similar.  I have several versions of the game and have numbered the tiles.  Students write questions to match.  The first student pulls a tile and answers a question.  If they get it correct, they place their tile and play continues to the next student.  If the first student answers a question incorrectly they must continue selecting tiles until they correctly answer a question.  There are a lot of tiles that come with some versions.  To keep the kids from writing 56 (!) questions, I have each child write 14 and play in teams of four.


If a child doesn't have their questions done, they simply cannot play a game until they are ready.  Questions are turned in along with the game boards at the end of the class and I count this as a small homework assignment.  I also sometimes offer some extra credit points (1/2 point for each game played and an additional 1/2 point for each win) to additionally motivate students.


These are great review games because they engage all students throughout the period, get kids moving around the room, and allow students to take ownership of their learning.  I would love to hear how others engage their students in review!