Swooper Citizens Use Teamwork!

Our Swooper Citizens lesson this week focused on Teamwork. We began the lesson under the Pavilion where the giant parachute was set up. First, we brainstormed the meaning of teamwork: working together for one common goal. Students gave examples of times they used teamwork. (“Remember our play, The Rainbow Fish, Mrs. Delwiche? That was an example of teamwork!”) Next, I asked students to pick up a side of the parachute and try to make it work.

Next we added a ball to the mix to see if we could work together to get the ball to go into the hole in the middle of the parachute.

Would you believe that as soon as I stopped filming, the ball went through the hole?!!

We discovered that teamwork for this challenge required us to watch where the ball was and to either shake the parachute if the ball was close to us or to stop shaking the parachute if the ball was on the other side.

Back in the classroom, I showed students three videos and asked them to decide which videos showed teamwork.

Anyone else cringing at the thought of the one boys fingers getting too close to the door?!

It was clear to the students how each video clip did or didn’t show teamwork and what the common goal was. In order to give them one more example of teamwork, I read aloud The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza, by Philomen Sturges.

“The story of the industrious Little Red Hen is not a new one, but when this particular hen spies a can of tomato sauce in her cupboard and decides to make a pizza, the familiar tale takes on a fresh new twist. Kids will love following along as the hen, with no help from her friends the duck, the dog, and the cat, goes through the steps of making a pizza-shopping for supplies, making the dough, and adding the toppings. But despite their initial resistance, the hen’s friends come through in the end and help out in a refreshing and surprising way.”

We discussed how the story would have changed if the friends had used teamwork from the beginning of the pizza making activity. Of course, I spent the whole time singing the Wonder Pets theme song in my head….”What’s gonna work? Teamwork!”

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