Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Teamwork

Last Friday was a big day for football fans in West Virginia.  It was the annual Coal Bowl, in which WVU and Marshall play each other.  This was Marshall's big year...we had a chance to win for a change.  So, we decided to use the event to have fun with the kids.  I sent a note home early in the week asking them to dress their child in Marshall green or the old blue and gold.  Here's the turn out for the green team.
Yeah.  That's it.  Me and Lydia!  Go Green.....
Then there were these two blue and gold cuties.   I don't think they planned to dress alike, but it sure worked for them.

Lydia and Anna are BFFs even though they root for different teams.  While we were "playing" football at the end of the day, I happened to look down and see Anna (who was not performing for anyone) say mostly to herself, with the appropriate hand motions, "Marshall is goin' DOWN!"  It was so funny.  Anyway, here are the BFFs.  Afterall, it is just a game.

During the big "game", where Mrs. Bayles was the quarterback for both teams, we had cheerleaders for both teams.  Notice the homemade pom-poms.  More about them later.  The game was just too fast to get photos.  :>)

So, the whole point of the day was to teach them a little bit about our wonderful state and a lot about teamwork.  Each of the day's activities were completed as a team.  They played finger flick football, worked with a map of WV, did some football math and made pom-poms.  Here's how the teamwork worked.  When making pom-poms, each person could only have one job.  There was a feeder, a cutter, a stacker, a sorter, a counter for each color and a taper in each of the 4 groups.  One child fed the crepe paper to me and I cut.  Another took the cut pieces and stacked them up.  The next child put them in stacks of 8 in each of the 4 colors.  Each child picked up one set of each color and I taped them together.  You can see they have all four of the colors in each pom-pom...no favoritism!  They worked together and heard lots of talk about the advantages of this plan.  A great time was had by all and again, they were well behaved and on task.  Gotta love that in a class!  Gotta love this class.  Here they are holding their TEAMWORK banner.
What do you think?  OH, and by the way, Marshall ALMOST beat the Mountaineers.  Next year!

6 comments:

  1. Go Herd!!! Lydia had SO much fun that day. She was so excited to wear her outfit that Grandpa Oakes gave her. She asked me every morning that week if it was the day to wear it. It made me feel a little better knowing that, even though she was in Mountaineer country, she had a someone on her side. :)

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  2. Looks like a super cute and awesome time! Love it! I'm trying to contemplate how to get my 6th graders to work together. Right now they're soooo against each other, any ideas?

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  3. Ashley, I guess my first suggestion would be to tie some of their rewards into earning as a team. Change the teams often if need be...
    Might work.

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  4. Karyn, I love that she can stand on her own and doesn't have to follow the herd...oh, no. Wait, we want her to follow the Herd. You know what I mean! :>)

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  5. What great pictures!!!! Those kids are so lucky to have you, but Charlie and I have decided you and Don can't move! We love our neighbors!!!! By the way you look wonderful (soccer) what's the secret to your "glow?"
    Love ya!

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  6. Thanks, Shawn. I think my "glow" comes the same way yours does...peace in God's love more often than not! Oh, yeah...and Zumba!

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