The Amazing Race

With Spring Break so close we knew we wanted to do something super fun and engaging this week. We teamed up with a science teacher to create an Amazing Race style activity. Let us say up front that this took A LOT of planning and prep but it was totally worth it. So, let's break it down step by step...

Our recording sheet. 

1. We knew we would need extra help with supervision since the students would be "racing" throughout the school building. We sent out emails to all of our parents asking for volunteers to come in and monitor each station/location (about 2 weeks prior to the activity).
2. With the science teacher, we discussed our students and how we should group them. Together we decided that it would be best to have two different paths in order to incorporate more challenging questions.We colored coded the paths. 
3. We decided on the various locations around the school that the students would need to visit. Then we created the clues for each location. 
4. The questions were actually the easy part! We made the questions and laminated them. 
5. We really wanted to make sure that each group (4 students) had a unique path throughout the school. This was challenging... we came up with 12 different paths throughout the school. 
6. Then the real organization came with setting up the clues. This where our parent volunteers were a tremendous help! We numbered each clue and put it into an envelope. Then sorted the clues based on locations, using bins/tubs. 

7. We created u-turns (if they didn't get the question right the first time then they had to go back and try again) and roadblocks (if they didn't answer correctly on the second try then they had a 30 second time penalty). 

8. Our parent volunteers set up at each station to check student work, monitor, and pass out the next clue. 

On the first day of the activity, we combined classes (about 48 kids) and went over expectations and directions. Then each group came up with their individual team names and created name tags. We had the students wear the name tags while racing so that other teachers in the school would know why they were in the hallway without passes (we are a hall pass school).

On race day, we met in the foyer of our school to give out the first clue... and the race was on! It was so much fun and the perfect activity for the week before break. We were so impressed with our students! We will definitely plan another activity like this in the future. 

February & March Wrap Up

Function review station

Two more crazy months! Our days were full of everything but snow 😒. We managed to have a day off for wind though! Melissa and I attended several conferences and STEM events in VA where we discussed active learning strategies with great success. In the classroom, we have had a lot of great activities going on. We've covered topics from functions to transformations. We even squeezed in a little coding.

Coding made easy and accessible for all. 

We are approaching 8 months in our new classroom. We still feel as excited and motivated by it as we did in September. As we've had the opportunity to meet and train other teachers, we are continually impressed by how teachers are trying to incorporate active learning strategies into their "traditional" classrooms. Also, after being 8 months in, we have really been able to streamline our planning process. We have both said numerous times this year that we can't imagine having to go back to teaching in a traditional classroom. In fact, the furniture and space have had such an impact on our students and their learning that we would like to incorporate even more flexible seating next year. We are excited to be meeting with Steelcase next week to discuss the results of our pre/post assessments. 

We are planning to return to our normal posting schedule in April. As we move into SOL testing season, our hope is to incorporate even more hands-on, active lessons.