Hunting for the treasure!

Hey dear friends,

I am happy. Forget about what is going on in my country but I am so proud of my students. In our society, kids are not used to group/team work and they can't even share. Grown ups can't even discuss something without getting into fights and shouting, imagine the kids' state!!

We prepared for a very simple class team treasure hunt. All the classes did the same thing but with some variations. Some teachers did all the work for the kids being scared they would use a pair of scissors to cut or even for the sake of saving time. NOT my Class and NOT my students :)

We started off by dividing the class into 2 teams. Each team voted for a representative who would be speaking to me and delivering the missions from me. I don't care about the final product, it's all about the process. First mission was to pick up a name for their teams. One team named itself "London" and the other named itself "Octopus". Mission 2 was to cut the pirates' eye patches making sure that each student gets to cut and to have one ;)

Mission 3 was to cut their signs and pin it to their T.shirts. Mission 4 was to receive their maps and interpret them trying to figure out where the treasure is in school. We didn't marsh them in lines, they were running, screaming and being as scary as any pirate could be. 

They took 15 whole minutes to dig the playground and find the treasure :) Our happiness when one member of one team found it couldn't be expressed :)

The pirate who found the sword is supposed to pick up a a sword and choose and opponent to fight.

After that came the evaluation part. They were evaluated based on: organization, co-operation, completion of missions, finding the treasure, the final battle and how they picked up after themselves (the cut papers, ...etc) Remember, I told you those are kids who are not used to sharing or teamwork. We had to somehow manage to make the final result equal so that they get to learn that they are all winners. They cheered and so proud of themselves, they were sweating and happy and above all, feeling capable :)

My partner and I definitely loved this experience, we are still bragging about it, maybe my partner Mrs. Safwa can jump in and comment on this post giving us some of her insights and reflections about this experience.

Thank you for sharing me my enthusiasm, I appreciate your comments.

Love,