Silent Ball

4 thoughts on “Silent Ball”

1. Diane N.

   August 14, 2013 at 6:44 pm

   This is one of the activities I’m putting in a chart to use in all my classes this year. I needed a way to make brain breaks easy for me — NOT part of planning and prep — and yet varied and fun for the kids. Just giving 10-14-year-olds a few minutes respite does not work. I WILL get wrestling, shoving, stealing pencils and hiding them, etc. unless it’s structured. And I wanted them not to be stupid things to do, but light and fun yet somehow contributing more than that. So it’s a summer set-up that will save me every day in the school year.

   I thought I’d share the idea:
   I have found or created 18 activities that could be a 2-5 minute brain break. All breaks allow kids to wiggle, move around, etc if they want. Some are based online and cultural, like “watch an Off the Great Wall video” or “Share the coolest video you have found on FluentU.com.” Some are directly movement and involve the whole class: Simon says, Silent Ball, something I made up called “In the Hall.” Some are Chinese “lite” such as Dictionary — let’s find a word(s) we haven’t had in class but they are curious to hear, or Chinese Jokes — I’ll read (likely translating) from a Chinese joke book that sits on my desk. Some activities – the Daily Doubles, if you will – allow the class to play for a piece of candy or small prize if they can beat their previous time. (To keep it simple, I am likely to estimate times!)

   So in the chart, there are 6 rows and 6 columns and the name of an activity in each box (each repeats twice in the chart). A child will roll a die to determine the column, another child rolls to determine the row, and voila, our Brain Break activity. A daily “game” without my feeling I’ve lost time in CI, and I haven’t had the agony of creating a game that I can make work with CI principles. And no more planning them.

   I’ll let everyone know how it goes. My difficult class is now my oldest group, the ones among whom are several boys who think that “I need to play games to learn Chinese” (quote) and “I don’t like to read” (another quote). Anyway, I aim to give them the sense of fun without costing me my principles!

   Log in to Reply
   1. Jennifer in NJ

      August 14, 2013 at 6:49 pm

      Diane,

      You may also want to check out Bryce Hedstrom’s list of PAT activities.
      Here’s the link: http://www.brycehedstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Prefered_Acitivy_Time-_NTPRS_presentation.pdf

      Log in to Reply
      1. Laura

         August 26, 2013 at 7:20 pm

         Perfect! Thanks for the link!

         Log in to Reply
   2. Erica

      August 14, 2013 at 7:24 pm

      Thank you for sharing! I love this idea!

      Log in to Reply