DI2018-Week2 Recap – Team Name and first Task Challenge

We had our Week2 meet on Oct 21st with 4 kids in attendance. My goal was to cover the following:

1. Warm up: Pick 2 items each and tell a story using the same.
2. Sharing: Build on each other’s choice item and create a shared story.
3. Learning: Task Based Challenge to learn about planning, implementation, and reflection
4. Decision: Pick a team name

We got through all these topics and the kids demonstrated high degree of learning and coordination. The best part for me was when several kids stated on their own “we have to listen to others and share what we know”. That is the spirit of team work and something DI encourages as well.

In the warm exercise the kids picked up some random stuff from around the house and made up creative stories including:

• A paper and glow stick became a boat with a mast
• Cat and Truck toys were used to illustrate traffic accident.
• A small projector was used to conjure up an image.
• The marker and eraser were good friends

They also built on each others’ stories which will help them to prepare for a Presentation Challenge. I also extended this to have kids create a story one word at a time. It was a bit tough going .. And again this will get better with more practice.

And for the first time I introduced a task based challenge with the goal of building the tallest tower possible with 12 sheets of paper. In this exercise kids learn to plan, discuss, agree, and implement ideas without chaos.

Initially they built a tower of 10 inches in height – impressive for the first attempt. I asked the kids to reflect on what went well and what did not. Two of the four kids said “it is important to listen to others’ ideas and share”. Bingo! If they can get this concept of listen and adjust, then teamwork will become more natural for them. There was no single kid who was dominating which made it pleasant to help them.

When I extended the time after reflection, soon they got to work and built a tower that was about 34 inches tall. Fantastic work! We further reflected on what can destabilize the tower. Wind, shaking, and extra touches can cause the tower to topple over. They learnt that they have to keep their hands off so as not to disturb the tower.

Finally we spent several minutes to choose a team name. This offers a safe learning environment for the kids to state their opinions, discuss, disagree, resolve conflicts, and come to an agreement team wide.  And there were several wild ideas involving monsters, adjectives, animals, Medina, etc. At one point it seemed to be a tougher exercise than naming a baby :-). In any brainstorm, we have to let ideas flow before we attempt to converge towards a few before deciding on one choice. We had this accordion play out.

There were two names that they came up with. They also came up with a way to do toss with heads / tails to select name. It was cool to see them innovate in creating a tossing coin using card board instead of real coin. We took a pause from naming to go do the IC and come back to this naming thing. The choices got further refined. Finally 3 out of the 4 kids agreed on one name. One was still holding out despite majority. We agreed to pause till next meeting on the assumption that additional kids can help tie break as well.

For our next meeting we will learn about team conduct and also read the Rising Star Challenge for DI2017.