I was reading a book today with one of my kiddos. I asked her how the character changed from beginning to end. Her explanation was, "In the beginning he was off the chains..." Yep, I just had to turn and laugh chuckle quietly to myself. Then I was a bit disturbed, wondering where in the world she learned it from. My, Oh My.
Leadership...
Today we had a faculty meeting. Our principal arranged for the Mayor of our town, who does a lot of leadership consulting, along with one of his colleagues to come in and do an activity with us on leadership. Our task was this...
The Marshmallow Challenge
Have you ever tried this before? It's interesting & quite insightful!
Have you ever tried this before? It's interesting & quite insightful!
In eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.
It was neat to see how we balanced each others strengths and weaknesses, who took a leadership role, who stepped back, and how teams worked together. The whole point of the activity is to get you thinking about Leadership and what it is. How do we, as teachers, lead? Obviously in many ways!! After we completed the task, they showed us this video..
Can you believe that kindergarteners built the best towers? I actually find it not too hard to believe because of their patience with strucutres (Think legos!) and ability to think about the process and how they would get to the end point... It was really interesting, nonetheless! I'm debating trying it with my kiddos when we get back from intersession. If I do, I'll be sure to share how it went!
I'm sad to say that my teams structure did not stay up :(. Failuuuuure. No wait, as Coach (our PE teacher) says, "If you had fun, you WON!" so we totally won!
Anyway, one of my teaching pals and I managed to make this super cute little guy after our structure failed to do its job! Darn spaghetti! Here is our lovely creation!
What does your school do to promote leadership?
How do you promote leadership in your classroom?
I totally agree that it's not surprising kinders did the best. Right now, to promote leadership and teamwork (or synergy as we like to call it), we're building leprechaun traps in groups of two and three. It is really interesting to see how they interact and who takes the lead with their common goals! I would totally recommend trying The Marshmallow Challenge with your kids!
ReplyDeleteDanielle
Carolina Teacher