Snowman Fun…

After returning from maternity leave, I felt like I needed to work on building community in my classroom.  We don’t have snow in Hawaii, but we have newspaper! The challenge was to work as a group and build a snowman, using newspaper and masking tape (some friends were a little excited about their snowmen and wanted to add decorating during free time).  The objective was simple… I thought… build a snowman with your group, it must be able to stand on its own.  I was hoping for teamwork and collaborating.  Two teams were unable to produce a product, they enjoyed playing in the newspaper, another group spend their time reading ads, one group ended up with several snowballs, but lacked the communication to actually assemble a snowman, and two groups were very successful.  HOWEVER everyone had fun. I wish I had pictures of them in action, but like I said one group was clearly playing in the paper, and other groups needed help peeling the masking tape… Great activity, if you do it with your class I would recommend prepping masking tape by sticking 4-5 inch strips around the tables in the classroom, as my friends had a hard time peeling the tape.