Tag Archives: grit

Marshmallow Challenge 2.0

Last year, when my friend Genie told me about the Marshmallow Challenge, I was on board from minute 1.   I knew I would do it again this year, too, but just maybe a little later than my original plan from last year, based on our new plans for doing community building.  So this year, we waited a little longer, and today was Marshmallow Challenge day.

Just like last year, we worked within these guidelines:

Screen Shot 2013-09-10 at 9.03.48 PMOk, well almost the same rules.  I realized when I opened the box that I had thin spaghetti, so I gave them 5 extra pieces. 🙂  The rest was the same.

First we reviewed our norms and the directions, then I set the timer and they set off to work.

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At the end of the 18 minutes, everyone stepped away….and….we saw all but one of the towers fall. 😦

Now, while the stated goal of the challenge is to build a tower that stays standing, the real goal of the activity is to work well enough with your group that that other goal can happen.  So what we needed to find out is what happened that made it hard for us to achieve our goal today.  We met on the carpet to discuss plusses (things that we did that HELPED us do well, or that went well) and deltas (things we would CHANGE to make it better next time).

Here’s the chart we made:

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We talked about our thoughts, and whether or not it was a coincidence that the 1 group whose tower stood is also the only group who put any plusses on our list.  Obviously, it was not a coincidence.

So my next question was “So what do we do next? What do we do with this information?”  The answer (from more than one person) was “Clean up?”  Well…yes, but that was not quite the level of problem solving I was hoping to hear.

So now I’m asking myself, what do I do with this info?  We’ve obviously still got a ways to go before most of us are ready to do something this tricky.  Today’s challenge, and the debrief that followed is telling me we still need to work on how to accept and appreciate the perspectives of others and not just consider our own.  We still need to work on using kind, patient voices with our classmates.  We still need to learn how to include everyone in an activity and give everyone an equal say.  We still need to learn to be gritty when something is hard or doesn’t work right on the first try.

So that’s what we’ll do.  And while we were not quite ready to take the Marshmallow Challenge today, someday–probably sooner than later–we will be.   And we’ll do it again. 🙂

Oh, but one more thing.  Here’s a pic of the group who was able to build a standing tower.  Way to go, friends!

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Can’t wait to share this again when we have our Marshmallow Challenge 2.0–Take 2!

Be Square

Here’s a post about another team building activity we did the other day.  And boy, did it take some GRIT!  Some grit that we had to dig really deep for, too. 🙂

The basic premise of the game is that each person in the group has a folder with pieces of different squares.  In total, the group needs to end up with 5 equal-sized squares.  The catch?  No one can talk.  You can’t ask anyone else for pieces, but you can give pieces to other people in your group if you think they need them.

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At first, this was a really tricky task!  The biggest problem?  Everyone was trying to do it on their own!  Pretty much the opposite of how the game works!  You would not believe the sounds I heard during this activity–it’s too bad I didn’t take any video.  Most sounds were moans and groans as they tried to figure out what to do, except for from Table 6 (see above)–their group had “tweeting” or “chirping” sounds happening during this task.  I soon figured out that that was the sound of them digging deep to find their grit.  Whatever works, right?

However, I mentioned that some of us really struggled, and that was something that could be seen as well as heard.  Within the first few minutes, there were twisted-up “thinking” faces, frowns and furrowed brows.  One friend was even laying over the seat of his chair upside down.  Frustration abounded.  But nope–they could not and would not give up. 🙂

Eventually it was time for lunch, and so we left to chow–and left our game just as it was, planning to return after we’d had some time to breathe.  As I was sharing the story of our struggle with some friends at lunch, Mrs. Berger said something about needing to see things in another way.  This was genius!  It gave me an idea for how we could switch things up after we came back.

Once we were back in the room and ready to get started again, kiddos returned to their tables, but they had to sit at a DIFFERENT seat than where they were sitting before.  Groups got started again and slowly, but surely, I started to get hands raised (which was the sign that they had gotten it!). 🙂

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As we debriefed after we were finished, I asked each group what they thought it was that helped them the most.  Without fail, groups mentioned that seeing it from another angle helped them–then could see the puzzle from a different point-of-view and think in another way.  Thanks for the suggestion, Mrs. Berger–it’s just what we needed! 🙂

 

How GRITTY Are You?

We’ve been working on a new word around our school lately:

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Grit can be defined as courage and resolve; strength of character.  It’s the “stuff” deep down that keeps you going when things get tough.  It’s what you hold on to when you have to push through something hard and not give up.  Here’s a video that we watched recently that does a better job of explaining it:

 

 

We have been talking about it as a staff, but we’ve been talking about it in our classroom, too. Here were our first thoughts on the subject:

The blue words are what we think grit is, and the green is how we think we can "get" it, or where we find it when we need it

The blue words are what we think grit is, and the green are how we think we can “get” it, or where we find it when we need it.

This is a new concept for friends in our class, and honestly, we are not very gritty yet.  But we’re working on it.  We even have a question we end our day with every day to help us reflect on our day:

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And even better, we’ve been doing lots of things lately (every day, really!) where we have to be gritty, and push through–even when it’s hard.  I’m excited to share our journey this year as we learn to dig down deep and learn to push through no matter what!

How gritty are you?  🙂