The past few weeks have been very interesting in my new position. I'm definitely learning a lot about the interworkings of the school, outside the classroom and grade level bubbles I used to be consumed with.
This past week, my intervention schedule finally started. I wanted to share some of the activities I did with my small groups to have some time to get to know them.
I started out with this game board. I do have some regular game pieces that the kids can use, but it's so much more fun to use Skittles as the piece you move around the board. When we're done playing, they get to eat their Skittle! (I did make sure to tell the kids to only touch their Skittle. You know, COVID... germs...)
How do you play? Good question!
The kids shared a game board with a partner. One partner rolled the die and moved their Skittle. Then, we went around the table and listened to each person read and finish their sentence. For example, "When I wake up, I brush my teeth." or "If I were famous, I'd be rolling in money." (Those were a few responses from my kids.) Then, the other partner takes their turn, and we go around listening to what they share.
I liked this activity because it's low stress, low prep, and we can just talk and relate with each other.
We used spaghetti and marshmallows to try to build the tallest tower. Most of the kids attempted the first tower you see above. I was glad to see some innovation, though, and different attempts to make a taller tower.
This activity was fun for the kids. They had something to do with their hands to keep them busy while just chatting and talking with each other and sharing laughs. It's also another low prep activity. The kids, of course, enjoy eating the marshmallows when we're done, too.
I made a 2D version of the Nintendo Game Boy from back in the day when I was a kid. Did you have one of those? I didn't, but I thought they were neat.
The kids worked on trying to perfectly fill their Tetris screen. I let the kids rotate and turn the pieces however they wanted to. I don't think there's any way to get the pieces to fit perfectly so there's no spaces left, but the kids sure enjoyed trying. The best we could do is just 2 empty spaces.
This activity was not low prep, LOL. It was still worth the time it took to cut out all those pieces.
The last of the activities we did to get to know each other a little was make an Instagram post. I know Instagram might not be the 'in' thing, or maybe it is, LOL. It's definitely my favorite social media, though.
The kids enjoyed this. It was low stress and gave them a chance to draw something that was meaningful to them.
I liked having the chance to hear them talk about something special to them, and it gave me a chance to see their sentence-writing abilities. Do they know the structure of a sentence? Do they listen for the sounds in words? Does their writing make sense?
We did all of these activities the first 2 days we met. I was ready to begin our learning on Day 3. We've got a lot to accomplish. Hopefully we can buckle down this semester and make some much needed, big gains.
