Disaster+Blaster+Week+11

Week 11, November 14, 2013

Games: Alan's turn to supply the games. His choices were poison dart frog game and sheep and shephard game. Both went over well. This was the last child to take their turn. I am very pleased to say that allowing the kids to bring in team building games of their choice worked really well. They looked forward to their turn. The variety of games was reflected by the variety of kids. It helped to create the ownership of the team that I wanted each child to have. As we begin to think about closing our season down, I will definitely be making a note to continue this idea. There were times when I brought a game to play, and we played that in addition to the other three games that a student would bring. That allowed me to give them specific team dynamics to work on, and they still got the benefits of the games they brought in. They spent alot of time on games, sometimes 45-60 minutes. Even though we now a little rushed on getting ready for Expo, I don't regret that choice because of the amount of growth they exhibited as a team.

Team Business Meeting: Our meeting this week was a little difficult because we only had three members. We talked a little bit more about Expo and some of the impending work.

Project: Students presented the information they collected on Hurricane Sandy. Based on that information, we made a list of five community helpers that work to help us prepare, stay safe, and rebuild from a hurricane: National Guard-Alan National Hurricane Center-Avery Army Corp of Engineer-Eric Coastal Oceanographer-Evan Red Cross-Zac Each student will need to create an addition for the Project Board about their assignment. It can be a paragraph with a picture or a collection of photos with captions. This will constitute the bulk of our Project Board.

Build: We wrapped our discussion of simple machines with a video about wheels and axles and some work with the simple machines kit.