Again, we extended our morning meeting time every day for a week by 10-15 minutes to squeeze in some good discussion and activities about synergy. Here's our week in review:
Day 1: Sean Covey's 7 Habits of Happy Kids book has a great chapter on synergy and working together as a soccer team. My kids loved the sports metaphor!
Day 2: We made an anchor chart to answer the question, "What does it mean to synergize?" We came up with some GREAT examples of what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like when we work as a team. This is going to get a LOT of referring back to throughout the year!
Day 3: We watched the last episode of "Happy Kids," which is found on the Leader in Me website. The synergy episode is called "The Perfect Poem," and shows two unlikely partners who end up writing a great poem and learn new things about each other.
Day 4: Okay, this might be a "bad teacher" moment. I had grand plans for a synergy demonstration this day.... and it turned into a BIG GIANT FAIL because we were not ready to synergize yet! We need LOTS more practice! I broke the kids into 3 groups, and had each group stand on a big piece of chart paper. Their goal was to flip the paper over without stepping onto the carpet. Umm... Cue danger, screams, and injuries! We stopped after about 2 minutes and had a looooong discussion about how what we'd just done (that is, everyone starting to yell and rip the paper) was NOT an example of synergy. Oh well... At least they have a "what not to do" in mind! We might try this exercise again in the spring once I know we're a synergizing machine. :-)
Day 5: After that big old mess, I needed a much calmer lesson. We had read Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathstrom a few weeks prior for a reading lesson, and we went back through it to identify examples and nonexamples of synergy. This is a GREAT book for Habit 6! The moral even says, "Always stick with your buddy!"
Together is better!!
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