Anyone who knows me knows that I am VERY spontaneous! Pretty much with everything! When I get an idea I go for it...this could be a good thing or a bad thing. Usually I do my best to make it work. Sometimes it takes some tweeking but I am always willing to try new things!
So it was Friday morning, I was driving to school (mind you it was a full moon, Friday the 13th, and the day of a predicted ice storm) so maybe that is why my thinking was off! A lot of my good (CrAzY) ideas come to me when I'm driving, taking a shower, or trying to fall asleep.
So as I was pulling into the school parking lot and I thought...SNOWBALL FIGHT! Today we are going to have a snowball fight. Not outside since the rain melted all of the snow, and since we haven't truly been able to go outside and just play; I figured we need to get rid of some energy!
So here was the plan:
During math I was going to make paper snow balls just like the ones from my "snow" ball popcorn word center and "snow"bath math addition.
We were going to have a snow ball fight and then we were going to do math problems with the snow balls.
I have an academically diverse classroom so this is how I set this up.
I made 3 different color of snowballs
(I just used 8 1/2 X 11 sized paper cut into fourths.)
I used blue, green, and white paper. I was thinking yellow but you know what they say...about yellow snow!?!?! I planned on differentiating 3 different ways.
I have some students who are still working on recognizing numbers 1-10 so
I took the green paper and wrote a number from 1-10 on each paper and crumpled it up into snowballs.
I made 2 sets of snowballs with a number from 1-10 written on it.
I then used white paper for the snowballs for my students who are on level.
I wrote a number 1-8 on each snowball. I made 4 sets of these and
crumpled them into snowballs.
For my higher level students I used blue paper.
I wrote a number from 10-20 on each paper, and crumpled them up to make snowballs. I made 2 sets of these.
I put all of the paper snowballs into a big bucket.
Now time for the fun!
I told my students that I had gotten a CrAzY idea on my way to school today and that I was really wanting to have snowball fight. I asked them if they would like to have a snowball fight today?
Of course there were collective screams of "YAY" and "Snowball fight!!!!" and then the one kiddo
says, "Mrs. Gardner, there isn't any snow."
"I know! We are having a paper snow ball fight!"
SO this is how it happened!
I gave every student a dry erase board and dry erase marker. I asked them to sit them on a table.
I gave a green sticker to my students who were working on number recognition and explained to them that when the timer went off they would grab 1 green snow ball and go to their dry erase board. They would then write the number from their snowball on their dry erase board and hold it up. We would then have them tell us the number. They would then put their snowball back in the middle and wait for the next round.
My on target kiddos didn't get stickers. I explained to them that when the timer goes off they needed to grab 2 white snowballs and take them to their dry erase board and write an addition number sentence. Once they completed the sentence they would hold their dry erase board in the air we would check it. They would then put their snowballs back in the middle and wait for the next round.
My higher level kiddos got blue stickers. I explained to them that when the timer goes off they needed to grab 2 snowballs, one white and one blue, and take them to their dry erase board and write an addition number sentence. Once they completed the sentence they would hold their dry erase board in the air we would check it. They would then put their snowballs back in the middle and wait for the next round.
I went over the rules:
NO running
NO throwing snowballs at peoples heads, neck down.
You have to be at least 2 steps away from someone before you throw a snowball.
I then explained our snowball fight penalty box.
I asked my students if they had ever seen an ice hockey game?
I explained to them that when ice hockey players break the rules they have to go to a penalty box. I also explained to my students that just like ice hockey players if they break the rules they will have to sit in the penalty box for one round.
(FYI-no one had to go to the penalty box)
So we headed to center carpet, threw all of the snowballs out of the bucket into the air and waited for them to land. I explained how the game works:
1. Snowball fight until the timer goes off. (30 Seconds)
2. When the timer goes off they grab their snowballs and head to their dry erase boards.
We did this for twenty minutes and it was a blast! My kiddos loved it and so did I!
Bonus: they were worn out! We haven't truly had a chance to go outside for recess due to the weather and this was the cure!
Hope you liked this idea and give it a try!
Here are some pics:
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