Owls 2012-2013: Autonomy Within the Game

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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Autonomy Within the Game

For the past few days, the Owls have been very excited to play the game Zingo, brought in by Penny. This excitement has ridden the recent trend of playing cooperative board games in our classroom. These cooperative games have been wonderful, and Tamara has blogged about the lessons they offer before. Although the cooperation from these games is a wonderful thing, these lessons have needed teacher support to be scaffolded into the joy and fun of the game: usually small disagreements rise among the players, and a teacher is needed to intervene and keep the peace.

Well, friends, today we had a breakthrough. While a small group was playing Zingo today, after the game started and everything was set up, the teachers left the group by themselves. Did they wait for the teacher to come back before continuing? No. Did they argue about whose turn it was? No. Did they bicker about who was winning? Not our Owls! What they did do was...was just keep playing. One of the players took charge of who was calling out the chips (with no more than a blink from the other players) and they just kept on having fun.

Players cycled through, and occasionally a teacher would need to come over to offer support, but for the most part, the gamers enjoyed independent harmony together. This autonomy was a joy to see, and is just one of the first steps in a process that allows children to feel comfortable with independence.

We also visited Jason in the music room today. He set out an array of different drums for us, and introduced us to the sounds and rhythms that they can create. Each Owl had a chance to try multiple drums.