We like to move it, move it...

For four of my eight years of teaching, I've been in the Freshman Block with Scott and Karen. This is our fifth year together. Scott teaches history, I teach English, and Karen teaches Computer Applications. We are all VERY different teachers. Our personalities and teaching styles couldn't be any more different. But somehow, we work very well together. Basically being in the block means that we share the same kids 4th, 5th, and 6th hours. They rotate between the three of us. It's awesome.

A week ago Friday, we took our kids outside for an afternoon of fun and team building. We had three "academic" competitions, and then a bunch of fun games. For computers, the kids were each given a piece of paper with a key from the keyboard on it. They had to arrange themselves in three rows like a keyboard. For social studies, Scott gave half the kids index cards with states on them and the other half had those state capitals. They had to find their "match." For English, I gave half of them authors and the other half titles of popular young adult novels. The whole afternoon was a blast. Each of us "coached" our fourth hour classes. My team was the blue team, Scott's was the red team, and Karen's was the white team. We had not told the kids what we were going to do, but we told them to wear those colors on Friday if they could. We thought it would be fun to have them all wearing team colors. The day before the events, we decided at the last minute that because some kids may forget, or some kids may not have shirts in the colors we assigned them, that we should get some cloth and cut it into strips so they could wear matching arm bands. That was our intent, anyway. You'll see in the pictures that follow that the kids were far more creative in their placements of the bands. Most of the boys immediately tied them on their heads and then slid them up, going for the "mushroom" look. If there is anything goofier than a 14 year old boy, I'm not sure I know what it is. Many girls put them on like garter belts. One boy wrapped his around the length of his arm, criss crossing it. (That was after I saw it around his neck like a bow tie and freaked out a bit...can you imagine that phone call? "I'm sorry Mr. M, but your son was wearing an arm band that I gave him around his neck, and it strangled him. But he won a point for his team!") Regardless of how they wore them, I was amazed that a simple piece of cloth could be so exciting for kids. It just tickled my funny bone.





I took my camera with me, and managed to catch a few photos. Not nearly as many as I would have liked, but there were a few great ones in the bunch. I was a "judge" for some of the events, so my hands were busy and my attention was not on photo opportunities. But, of the photos I got, the best ones were action photos, taken in quick succession. I have found that I really love the "burst" feature on my camera. It's fantastic for action shots!

One of the funny things we discovered during the hula hoop competition is that kids have VERY different strategies for keeping the hoop moving. Some kids couldn't do it. Some were amazing. Some kids moved their whole bodies. Some didn't even look like they were moving at all, but those hoops kept circling.

I was taking a picture of this sweet young lady in my class when the next hula hoop over caught my attention. (I've blurred the faces of kids to protect their privacy. I used the smudge tool in Photoshop Elements. It was sort of fun to move their noses around, and change their appearances!)






Check out the moves on this kid...






Think he's a show off??





How about now?

Still not convinced?

Look at the kids in the background...their faces are blurred, but it's still pretty obvious several of them are thoroughly enjoying the show...

The ironic part of this all is that he dropped the hoop about three seconds before the end of his time, thereby forfeiting a point for his team.

But they didn't mind. The entertainment was worth it.

I can't wait until our next Field Day. I'm thinking we'll see if we can get him to do the limbo...