leT's pRetEnd...

It's amazing how the how an experience can be totally transformed by our imagination of it. Our minds can change a simple errand into an adventure, a mundane task into a life or death-level challenge, an ordinary place or object into something alive, or even magic. With games and any physical movement, I've been noticing, it is the same, especially with kids, as they are so much closer to this manner of approaching the world-- seeing what could be in what actually is... My Tuesday was transformed as a result. My games with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Graders was spent it a much more imaginative space. I consciously made an effort to present all the material, and two games I'm thinking of in particular, with images, with imagination, framing them. The first of my two favorites worked with all age levels, and worked incredibly well! It was a jungle chase scene of sorts-- called TIGER, LEOPARD (I got it out of this simple tag games book)-- each student has a partner; one is a tiger, the other a leopard. The tigers all crouch down on a line on one side of the field and the leopards are behind. On a specific cue, the leopard have to LEAP over the tigers, and then run to the other side of the jungle to safety as the tigers rise and chase them! The winner-- leopard or tiger (if he tags his leopard) gets to choose which role to play in the next round. I had no idea that something so simple, and that was in essence a series of leaps and wind-sprints-- would be an activity ALL of these kids were so engaged in! It was such fun-- with the running and the growling and all of that :). The second game in which imagination made all the difference was a circle game called "Sew Up the Circle"-- I'm not going to explain it in detail (though if you want the rules, just let me know!) but again, the image created made the game an immediate success-- all three classes just ate it up.

I left school yesterday feeling confident and triumphant-- a relief after Monday's discouragement. Back to School Night was also last night and it was heartening to hear from parents that their children had been excitedly telling them how much fun they were having in my class so far. So I'm going into today with optimism. It's my late morning so it's been nice to have a little more time for me, but now it's time to go. More later...