Being able to collaborate and work well with others is a skill that students will need for the remainder of their time in school as well as into adulthood. By working alongside, one another, students gain problem solving and communication skills while also fostering a strong sense of community within the classroom. Students may be challenged to work with a friend they may not usually work with in order to develop an understanding of someone else’s point of view. Collaboration within our first grade classroom looks different from day to day. Students may simply be asked to turn and talk with a partner to generate ideas during whole group discussions, or they may be asked to work together to solve a challenging math problem. Recently students practiced and displayed their teamwork skills by working in large groups to figure out the answers to questions in our social studies game about the Mexican holiday, Night of Radishes.
During the winter months, first grade students have learned about holidays all around the world to give them an opportunity to see how people living in other countries celebrate with their families. While students learned about many holidays during this time, they really took an interest in Night of Radishes, a Mexican holiday where people create large sculptures made out of radishes and hold a contest to see who created the best one. Our class was introduced to this holiday while reading one of our Scholastic Magazines. When using Scholastic Magazines in our classroom, we enjoy using the online version to help bring the learning to life through dance breaks, games, and informational videos on the topic. When playing the trivia game related to our Night of Radishes magazine, students were split into two groups to answer the questions. Students immediately got into huddles with their teams to brainstorm the answer together and then independently chose who would represent their team each round. Seeing students working well together made me so proud!