Teamwork Is Fun!

#sol19- August 13, 2019

Our first unit is PERFECT for the start of the year as it focuses on “How We Organize Ourselves”, specifically, the central idea is: The decisions we make together impact how we cooperate and organize ourselves. The lines of inquiry include: The impact of our decisions on others. (connection), our responsibilities as citizens. (responsibility) and strategies for effective teams. (function). So when I saw a suggestion on our list of “things we should do in the first week of school” my wheels started to spin. One suggestion was slime, but I thought that maybe they might be satisfied with oobleck, but only if I approached it correctly.

So, today, on day six of our new school year we embarked on a series of team challenges. For the second one of the afternoon, we headed to our “learning kitchen”. I have to admit the learning kitchen is not my favorite spot in school- the acoustics are terrible and I knew the excitement level would be high, but…

I approached it as a bit of a mystery. “This concoction has just two ingredients,” I began. The energy level ratcheted up. ”

You need three scoops of this powder and then two scoops of water.” Immediately there was a buzz in the room. I drew sticks to determine teams and we were off!

After some time to experiment we set out to clean up- it was quite a mess to clean up, but teamwork won the day!

After posting to Seesaw we reflected on the day- several named making oobleck as a highlight of the day because it was fun, but another added: “I saw that teamwork made it even more fun.”