more success with the water cycle

Today was another great day at Cathedral! Well for me and the kids, not this shift key... Anyway. We watched a BrainPop video about the water cycle and took the quiz, concensus style. I gave all the kids business cards that said "certified water expert; hereby knows all about water and the water cycle". Very official. We also played a game (http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/datwc.html) where we were a water droplet, trying to make it... well I'm not sure where, the game is hard and we couldn't stick with it for too long. But it was fun!

I thanked the kids for trying the activity and helped them go to the (approved) games they wanted. Kyle said, "the activity was fun! I liked it." I felt good about it.

I like my new strategy of trying to find one visual site (with a movie, or some pictures) and one interactive site (like a game) and giving prizes to the kids for trying and doing a good job. Which all of them do, so they all get a prize. This is so much less stressful than trying to do some elaborate lesson plan; the kids deserve free time to play their games too! And now they all look forward to the computer lab. When Faith was reminding them that Monday is computer day with Roxanne, Kyle was all, "I love Roxanne!". Aw, yes. Kyle rules.

I've determined that I have several keys to a good activity.
-lay it out: be specific about what you are doing and let the kids know that a) it won't last too long, and b) they will get to play games
-offer prizes
-show them cool games that you know of, they are impressed.
-have the activity as interactive as you can, and ask some of the older kids to help the younger kids. they might grudgingly agree, but then have a great time helping.
-let them play, and play with them. Their games are fun, so this is not hard.

Woo!
I'm not sure how I'm going to write up my activities that i have been doing, but when that time comes... I guess I'll just do it!
ROCK!