October 2018

Kindergarten & 1st Grade

We started developing teamwork skills by putting tennis balls in cups. Sounds easy but was tricky. Kids worked in pairs. They had to collect a ball, or a number of balls and deliver them to a bowl in the back of the class. They also weren't allowed to touch the tennis balls. They were each provided a single dowel rod per student. They were not allowed to touch the ball with anything but their own stick. The pairs then had to figure out a way to work together to move the balls.

2nd & 3rd Grade

These grades also worked on teamwork skills by moving tennis balls. After mastering the initial challenge they had to figure out how to move the tennis balls without touching them and with out walking. They used a lot of inventive thinking.

4th & 5th Grades

These classes worked on their communications skills by doing the Bee Dance activity. They had to work out a plan to give directions non-verbally so their team mates could find something they hid. 

After that they worked on teamwork skills by building cup towers. Both grades were not allowed to touch the cups. 4th grade was provided rubber bands and string to manipulate the cups. 5th grade was provided dowel rods to manipulate the cups.

Finally they had a similar challenge to kindergarten through 3rd. Instead of tennis balls they had to transport 10 marbles without touching them. They had cardboard tubes and were not allowed to walk while holding the tubes. Some teams pored the marbles between tubes. Some used the tubes to make holders that they passed. There was a lot of inventive thinking.