Paper Folds/Group Work

I actually used the paper folds and groupwork this week. I was a little worried about the groupwork part, because basically I was only putting them into groups to share supplies. I imagined complete chaos would ensue, but it actually worked out pretty well.

During first period when I taught, I ran out of proceedures with about 10-15 min left in the period, so I reviewed for a while and then spent some time discussing the afternoon activity. I explained to the students that I had brought my own art supplies from home and that they weren't just crayons and markers, because I know they're old enough to handle nicer supplies (really, I just didn't want to drive to walmart and buy anything else...but they didn't need to know that). We went over group proceedures and I warned them that in order to do something fun during 4th period, I needed to see that they were well behaved. Otherwise, I'd just give them a worksheet.

They were like little angels all day :) The first few minutes of my lesson, after the set, we played charades. It was so much fun!! We had learned some adjectives in French the day before, so I put some different adjectives on slips of paper and kids volunteered to act them out. When the class knew the answer they had to raise their hand and then tell me "He is ______." in French when I called on them. It was a lot of fun, and the best part was that the class clowns really got to shine (without getting in trouble). One quiet guy from the front of the class, "Mr. T" volunteered to act something out. He's really quiet, looks about 18 years old, has gold teeth, baggy pants, etc. Basically, he looks like a thug. He happened to draw "young" as his adjective. He mimed playing basketball, but the class wasn't getting it. I asked him if he wanted to choose a partner from the class. He chose X, the other "thug" in the class (the only kid in our class who's had an office referral, but is really sweet underneath it all) and they had a little conference, and then both of them got down on their knees in front of my class and played patty-cake! It was the cutest thing I've ever seen! I wish I had had my camera out!! There were some other cute ones, and for the last one I let all three volunteers act it out together and they actually coreographed a scene.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, after this, we went over groupwork proceedures and I reminded them that they are supposed to "respect their teacher" which includes not breaking my art supplies and we talked about how to ask someone politely for one of the supplies. We folded our paper and I told them to glue it when they got into groups. I went over the assignment and showed them my "self portrait". Then I assigned them groups. I had moved 2 boys earlier "to make it easier to get into groups", and managed to keep trouble away from 4/5 groups. The fifth group wasn't even that bad... I also assigned a group leader for each group, who was the only group member allowed to raise her hand if they needed something. I was trying to promote cooperation (when we did groups before, they wouldn't ask their partners for help!) and I think it worked fairly well, except X didn't get along with his group leader. At least it was a growing experience (I hope).

Basically, they loved the opportunity to be artistic and do something different. It gave different kids a chance to excel (the girl who has trouble reading was the best at using the scrapbooking scissors and helped everyone in her group with them), and I hope it taught them a little bit about cooperation. The classroom didn't burn down (which is what I expect every time I do groupwork) and the worst that happened was someone banging a bag of pencils onto someone elses desk (at which point I threatened to take the pencils away, and they straightened up). Overall it was a success, less stressful than I imagined and fun for the kids!