PlayDayMonday

So ... halfway through Term 1 it was becoming clear that Mondays were just not 'a happening thing' in 'theONE6'.

One of my students even selected this Bitmoji (out of ALL the hundreds to choose from) because he just does not like Mondays!

So ... having participated in #GlobalPlayDay on the third day of the year, it got me thinking. And it got my student thinking too!

"Can we do PlayDayMonday?" he asked me one day. 

I replied to him ... that could be the answer! Go off and put some ideas down ... what kids could do, some cool online games you might play, board games they might bring in, cards etc. So off he went and put together a Doc of ideas. We posted it into our Google Classroom for others to add to and we kicked off this week. 

It went okay ... actually it probably went better than okay. I think MY own concern is ... are they LEARNING something during this day? There is this nagging feeling you get when attempting something innovative and different from the norm that the kids aren't really 'learning what they should be'. 

And then the question comes up ... "what is important to learn?" 

And then another question comes up ... "who says what I think is important is what they think is important?" 

And then I start thinking ... my goal is a student-centred , student directed classroom. If this is the goal ... then I have to allow them some choice in their days and what they learn. 

So we did it on Monday. It looked busy. It looked fun. It looked like everyone was engaged in some 'play'. 

Strategy games ...

Hangman ...

Creating their own music tracks using Ditty ...

Cool maths games ...

Another strategy game ...

using the time for MathsMakerProject ...

The kids were busy and the day FELT better than most other Mondays. What a great idea of Ryan's to suggest this and put the initial idea out there to me:)

Being a highly reflective person, I wanted to gather the #studentvoice about the success of the day so I created a Google Form to get some feedback. Here are the results ...

When Ryan shares this feedback, I have discussed with him that is perfectly ok if the 2 or 3 kids who aren't so sure about PlayDayMonday if they want to just continue on with their own learning tasks. He also has some suggestions from the kids which he will clarify before next time:) 

Nothing better than a student-driven innovation! 

This was the part of the survey which pleased me the most. The kids were pretty clear about what they were learning during the day. Perseverance is ONE of our core virtues - and it is the FOCUS virtue this Term. So this was awesome to see it as a top learning outcome for the day. 

Sharing, discussion, thinking about options, strategies, and moves, and being creative were other learning outcomes in the kids' top 3. I am VERY happy with that! These are all the things I wish for my kids at school ... the 3 C's 

COLLABORATION * CRITICAL THINKING * CREATIVITY

BOOM!