Not tech related but I thought I'd use technology to share....
I'm always amazed at how quickly you can get kids to do something when you make a game out of the desired task. For me, getting kids to pick scraps up from the art room floor has never been so easy when I play the game I call "Mystery Scrap". The kids will beg you to play this game. I've been doing this for years so I'm not sure if I learned this from someone else or I made it up on my own. When students are doing a particularly messy project resulting in lots of scraps on the floor, I will scope out a unique looking scrap on the floor. (If you cannot find something unique, I wouldn't judge you if you decided to contribute to the mess by adding a unique looking scrap of your own.) When it is time to clean up, announce to the class the clean up procedures and then, tell them, "There is a 'Mystery Scrap' somewhere on this floor. Whoever finds it will win an award from the prize bin." (If you don't have a prize bin, it would be worth it to invest in one.) Kids will practically dive out of their seats if they deem the prize to be worthy enough. Be aware. They might even tackle you if you are standing next to some of the scraps. It is good idea to stand next to a garbage can because the kids will approach you will hands full of garbage as they eagerly ask you, "Is this it? Is this it?" One thing I've learned is to not announce the "finder" of the scraps until the floor is clean. If students ask me if anyone has found the scrap, I will respond, "I'm not sure," while looking all over the floor to see if it is still there. At the end, I will announce the winner and tell them which scrap it was. My floor is always spotless when playing this game except in the story below. One child had her own ideas of the most efficient way to clean up.
During the past two weeks, I have been doing cross-curricular units with the first and second grade teachers as they teach their Life and Animal Units in their Science classes. Through a tip from my husband, I learned of a Grant opportunity from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. I applied for a Grant and won money that allowed me to purchase incubators for use in the first and second grade classrooms, as well as in my Art room and the Middle School Science room. My husband and I provided fertilized eggs from our farm to place in the incubators and by next week, our baby chicks should hatch. During the units, the project themes in my Art classes are related to the Science units. On Thursday, last week, students were finishing their chicken drawings. They had to "invent" a new breed of chicken, place it on a "nest box", and create a nest with shredded construction paper "hay". This has been, by far, one of my favorite lessons as the outcomes were so creative. It looked like the floor of a hay loft in a barn. I wasn't too concerned, though, because I knew the kids would perform a miracle during clean up. When it was time to clean up, I knew the kids would need a little extra assistance so I grabbed a broom and started cleaning the outskirts of the room. As I was approaching the garbage, one child approached me with her hands full of scraps. Instead of asking me about her scraps, or heading to the garbage can, she looked at me, looked at the broom and the scraps on the floor, and then, proceeded to drop her pile of scraps on the floor in front of the scraps being pushed by my broom. I was stunned. I hadn't expected that. I did what any teacher would probably do when a small second grader does something like this. I LAUGHED. Then, I looked at her with a fun, confused look on my face and all she could ask as she raised her hands was, "What?" I love these moments in teaching. Kids will do things that will give you reasons to laugh. What else can you do? In that moment, the thing that probably made the most sense to that child was, "She's on her way to the garbage can anyway so why not?" Why not? I could've taken the moment to talk seriously to her, but judging by the look she saw me give her (in a fun way), I could tell she got it. To that I say, "Why not? Why not LAUGH?"....
