The amount of support I've been getting from Phillipa has been incredible. She gets a sub every once in a while for a block of the day so that she and I can just go and do some planning and get some things figured out. I LOVE that. I also love how much we laugh with our kids... they're so funny and they deserve appreciation for their awesome senses of humor!
So when I was in Katy's social studies methods course fall semester, we did this activity with M&Ms where they were actually money and we had to trade with other people in our class to see who could become richest. You got bonuses for three of a kinds as well. After each round, whoever was considered "upper class" (it was a certain number of M&M dollars that determined that) got to make up a rule for the next round. I thought that it was an incredible exercise and when we did it, I felt like everyone hated me by the end because I stole M&Ms from people. No one said I couldn't! And then when Celia and I won and tried to share our M&Ms with everyone, no one wanted to. It was kind of sad.
So anyway.... we are starting our financial literacy unit for math with the kids. Pip and I have the "lowest" group (they scored lowest on their assessment sheets). We assumed that these are the kids that have no interest in money and absolutely no interest in math. So I thought this would be a great way to get the ball rolling. However, I was kind of nervous because, even with all of the planning I did for it, I wasn't sure how it would go. I felt like there was enough confusion in our SS class with all college kids, I didn't know how these 11 and 12 year olds would do... the hours leading up to when I introduced this to the students (who, mind you, I had never met before because this was their first day in this class), I was almost shaking I was so nervous. I really didn't want it to fail.
The students came in and all sat down and we got attendance done. And then, out of nowhere, the kids got to meet the queen of M&M world (ME!) It was the best hour of my life! I really did feel like a queen (kids were actually bowing down to me... how's that for my ego?) The first round of the game was a little rough just because the kids had to fully understand what was required of them and all of that. They had to make sure they knew how to fill out the charts and understood the 3 of a kind deal. After that, though, we were on our way! The kids finished their first day SO excited (and since we have kids from the whole team, I heard them talking with their homerooms about the game and how much fun it was!) I was so proud to be a teacher in that moment, but knew that tomorrow, the kids would all hate me. Because that's when I turned on the wicked witch of the west....
The second day, I decided I should probably have some kind of way to get the kids' attention (and of course, my penalty for not complying was taking one of their M&Ms, mwahahaha). So, by the time I got to the end of "They melt in your mouth, not in your hand" the kids had to be completely quiet or I'd take an M&M. After a while, one of the students made the very good point that they WERE melting in his hand. The truth of the matter is that 1. Yeah, they do, haha. and 2. They were SMARTIES, a completely inferior type of M&M. No WONDER they were so upset! So anyway... after the 3rd round, the group that was the richest in the whole class got to make a rule. They decided to take an M&M from every group in the classroom. All HELL broke lose. The kids were SO mad and upset and "It's not fair"ing and it was funny to me, but they had real frustrations that I really wanted to link with real life!
We had a lot of really good conversations about real life and money and how it's distributed. The kids made some fantastic observations and I was just so impressed with their level of thinking. Today I think I'm going to just have them fill out a little reflection just to have on file so I remember just how powerful it was. Oh, AND 3 teachers have asked me for the lesson so that they can do it in the future! AWESOME!
For literacy, I've been doing some Sci Fi reading with some of the students (War of the Worlds, baby). We're going to start tearing it apart this week to see what makes up a Sci Fi story and hopefully the kids will come up with some awesome stories by the end of the week (if we get that far). Yesterday was the Queen's birthday, so we had a day off (which I'll write about in the next entry!), so we only have a four day week this week. Hip hip, hooray!
Today starts the first day of my last three weeks teaching. Where the heck did the time go? I got a gym membership (20 days for $20, awesome!), so I've been monitoring how fast I've been running (or should I say, how slow), so I've been kicking my butt trying to run faster (when I actually run... I was kind of slack this weekend). Although it's been a good boost for my morale because I've realized that I can run a lot faster than I thought, it's been KILLER on my knees. NO fun. Today I'm going to go buy some joint something or other Celia told me about. Yes!
Alright, I have to go buy all the kids M&Ms for all being guinea pigs in my little game...
No comments:
Post a Comment