Playbox: Human Knot

For mine and Dustin's playbox, we had to come up with something that followed the theme of learning through movement. We didn't want to do something everyone would expect, so we had to spice it up. Our original plan was to lead a musical chair activity but with the giant pole in the middle of the classroom, we were having trouble deciding on a set up. Once looking at the weather for the week, we saw it was going to be nice out and we took advantage of this. After some thought, we decided on the human knot. However, we added one small detail. 

First, we split the class into two teams. We decided to play one round of the human knot with the teams being able to communicate and one where they had to be totally silent. This was to teach the importance of verbal versus non verbal messages as well as improving on our team building skills. 

Leading this activity was a great start to the class and set the mood for our guest speaker. 

Something that was challenging was going back and forth between where we were going to conduct the activity. We repeatedly had to check the weather and make sure we would be able to go outside. If I ever had to lead this activity again, I think I would make sure the instructions were more clear. I feel as though there was some slight confusion, specifically when one team would finish, the other team just stopped instead of trying to finish. Overall, the activity went great, everyone had fun, and we were able to get our message across to the class.

Guest Speaker Reflection

For my guest speaker reflection, I feel as though I resonated the most with Karisa Tashjian from the Providence Public Library. She instantly gained my attention with her opening discussion. Like most new comers to our classroom, I was expecting her to have us go around the room and say our names and some fact about ourselves. Instead, she asked us to share our dream jobs and I thought that was a great way to start the class and get our minds thinking about where we want to end up after graduation. As a speaker, I feel as though she presented herself well and was very engaged in what students had to say. I absolutely loved the activity she did. She gave us a minute to brainstorm a list of all the fish we could think of. We then went around the room and made a class list of all the fish we had come up with. I believe her main point here was to show us that we can all learn from each other even when given the same task. This activity really resonated with me and I can see myself using this in a future youth space. In addition, she gave a lot of insightful information about various fundraising that goes on at the library. These conversations really resonated with our themes in class about individual and in kind fundraising. It was a great experience to be able to hear about how these things work first hand from a professional standpoint.