I am the type of teacher who loves to plan unit by unit, attempt to do the whole backwards design thing, and always have lessons planned out at least a week in advance. This has worked out pretty well for me so far this year but this week I could just not figure out what I wanted to do with my 4th graders. We're just finishing up a unit called "Around Town" and their final product was to create a drawing and describe it, talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. To take this unit one step further, the curriculum introduces the idea of giving directions to get around town and uses the buildings where the jobs work. I just could not figure out how I wanted to teach the directions in a way that was fun and engaging. I succumbed to google searches to see if any other elementary teacher had posted lesson ideas for this topic but was out of luck. One morning this week when I was in a panic about not knowing what to teach in 3 hours, an idea sprung to my head.... an obstacle course! This is by no means an original idea... it's actually something I did when I was a Resident Adviser at the University of Michigan. There, it was a trust activity as one person told their blindfolded partner how to safely make it through an obstacle course. I figured, why not do this and give directions in Spanish? So, I borrowed domes from the gym teachers, set up 3 courses out in the halls, and drew up little "cheat" sheets for the students to look at in case they forgot their right from their left.
The materials: cut-up towels for blindfolds, domes, black masking tape on the floor, and the "cheat" sheet.
The course in the hall. Students started at one black line and had to make it to the other without touching a dome.
Me trying to be artistic with my camera :) I thought it looked cool, especially with the reflection on the floor.
Once the students arrived in class, I broke them up into groups of 2. Then we went out to the hall. One partner received a blindfold and the other received a cheat sheet. I decided to do 3 obstacle courses so that more groups could go at once. One group started on each course, and when they were halfway through, another group started. Once the groups finished, they switched roles and started over. The students were so excited about this activity and were speaking so much Spanish! For coming up with this activity right before class, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :) Don't get me wrong, planning ahead is ALWAYS the better way to go. However, sometimes our best ideas spring to mind when we are under pressure. :)
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