Drizzled pavement this AM

The walk this morning had damp sidewalks along the route down Yosemite Ave to McKee. The clouds overhead looked like the rain would be likely all morning. Half way along, however, the clouds scooted East and the sun broke through the patch that allowed the clouds to vanish.

Its going to be a warm.. at least for December Saturday morning.

I met a fellow teacher at the Starbucks and then after passing conversation decided to take the "long route." This walk is one that I do only once a week. It make the trip longer than an hour and the actual gain is not as productive as many short walks. I also had an almond brioche from the goodie counter so I felt that I needed to walk it off.. like you really could.

Friday I had a little gimmick in the morning. I used a bit of garland (red) as a mantle for speech. Then each student could name three things that fit in the category that I provided. If they did, they could choose who would wear the mantle and fill the categories. This worked well until two students kept choosing each other back and forth to wear the mantle and answer the category questions. So the game needed to be modified.

In the afternoon the two sides were chosen and then we played category be exclusion. What are 10 things about Christmas that the other team would not put on their list. Then each team would reveal the one item that the other team did not have on their list. The other team would look at their list and see if it was there. If it was not there, then it went on the board for that teams list. The only thing that has to happen as a game master, is that you have to give each team a chance to propose their contribution, and the game master must try to keep track of which team originated the entry. It was fun and the students enjoyed it. It also encouraged the "whisper" response so that the other team would not hear. It requires a writer on each team.. so you have to "seed in" instead of strictly allow chance to take its turn in collaborative learning. Shy talkers need to be the responders. But they can ask for help from the more verbal students. Then the reading writing part is a bit problematic if there are not students that can do this easily.

I hope you have a great weekend!

: ) Pat