Wednesday Afternoon & Wednesday Evening - Classes and Whole Group Activities

When you think of middle school, there are only a few things that change through the course of a typical day.  While you follow the same schedule, see the same teachers, sit near the same classmates, the topic/discussion/concept and how they are presented are the only things different from day to day.  Here at Nature's Classroom, no two days are even remotely similar.

We had one bunch of classes to chose from (only one "class" today).  Our choices were:  Knot Fun, Wagons West, Oh the Drama, Myth or Mythout You, People to People, and Starfish Dissection.  See if you can guess which subjects each class represents.  Here are a few photos of some of those classes.

By the way, here's our passing time and our "hallways".  Be sure to notice that in between our classes, we have time to play!

So instead of another round of classes like yesterday, we were preparing for a whole group simulation.  If you're not sure what a simulation is, you might want to Google it.  We were in the gym, discussing what we know about the food chain.  Students were grouped into leopard frogs, green frogs, tiger beetles, walking sticks, dragon flies, snakes, and two (yes, 2) hawks.  We then went to the woods for the biggest game of tag I have ever seen.  There were some goals, there were some rules but in the end, if you were tagged by another species, you became them.  If you had a red "x" on your cheek, well, you will just have to ask the students.  In the end, though, our hawks were the largest group, growing from 2 to about 40.  A record occurred during this game, we managed to have a group of frogs and snakes survive! 

So onto the evening.  Yet another simulation and a first for Cudahy Middle School.  This was a new activity called Red Betsy (not sure how they came up with that name) involving consumerism.  Our teachers here had the strangest costumes and literally assumed a variety of roles.  We each got information on our roles; ranging from people working hard, people who were bartering, and people who were pushing products.  It was interesting to hear the students explaining how things changed throughout the simulation; describing supply and demand, economic stressors, and consumer behavior IN THEIR OWN WORDS!

And yet another round of homemade cookies, a glass of milk, a story and a slideshow.  All required for a good nights sleep.