Playful + Focused (3rd-5th Grades)

What an energetic group of students I have for Mind Move Make, Session 1, 3rd-5th grades at TIS!  We started our first class of the year discussing the importance of mutual respect for every individual in the class.  Then each child had the chance to introduce herself by telling everyone her name, grade, and one thing that she LOVES to do so that we can really get to know one another.

For this class we concentrated on the ideas of "focused" and "playful".  Throughout Mind Move Make, Session 1 we will try to find the intersection between being focused and playful.  In group creative work, if individuals are only focused then there is no life in the work.  If individuals are only playful, the work can dissolve into an uncontrolled fit of silliness.  Both of these beautiful, important ideas need to come together to make successful creative work!

In order to try finding the balance between being focused and playful, we engaged in a game called Group Juggling!  The students stood in a circle and everyone started with one hand in the air as if asking a question.  I had a ball, and I threw it to one person in the circle.  After receiving the ball, each student put her hand down.  Once each person had the ball passed to her, we were ready to start!  Going in the same order, we passed the ball together.  After that, another ball was added so that students must focus on two balls going around the circle.  Then we added movement to the mix, and students were encouraged to move as intuitively and playfully as they could WITHOUT dropping the balls or loosing focus!

Through playing this game we discovered that our group is MUCH more playful than focused!  I was impressed with the courageous, uninhibited, beautiful ways that the students moved intuitively through the room as we engaged in Group Juggling.  Unfortunately, our lack of focus led to the ball being dropped over and over again.  We'll work on bringing the ideas of focus and playful closer and closer together throughout Session 1.

For the art portion of the class I asked the students to create a piece of artwork illustrating FOCUSED and PLAYFUL while finding the place in the middle where they come together.  It was interesting to see their artistic interpretations of these two ideas.  Some students used shapes, all the students utilized color to explain the two concepts.  Here are the results of their endeavors!  See if you can recognize which part of the artwork is "focused" and which is "playful".