In my new role, I’ve got to learn about 400 names (insert teacher in a cold sweat just thinking about it!), which means that I’ve been starting off all of my first classes with name games. Because I’m teaching STEM, I came up with this simple little idea that achieves the dual purposes of having students introduce themselves and working together to create something.
The activity, which I’m calling Share & Build, is super simple. I put Jenga blocks into a bucket. Students passed the bucket around the circle, each taking out a block. I modeled the process by going first and sharing my name, something I like to do, and then placing my block down on a table or the floor (whichever makes the most sense for visibility.) I then chose a student to repeat the process. That student selected the next participant, until we had gone through the whole class and had created something together.
My second graders loved this activity and were highly interested in seeing how their classmates would choose to add their blocks to our classroom creation. I found it interesting to observe the way that, as the top photo shows, some classes ended up working to create a neat, orderly design, while others were more focused in looking for novel placements of the blocks. We definitely had some toppling action, which provided a good first opportunity to discuss the importance of mistakes and experimentation in STEM.
If you’re considering trying out this idea, I think that, with a smallish class, having students have two blocks each could make this activity even more engaging.
Cultivating Questioners 