Snow Day Challenge

In my opinion teaching is all about collaborating and sharing ideas.  With the boom in social media this sharing of ideas has exploded too.

I now find myself following many teachers on Instagram and Facebook.  I constantly find myself trolling Pinterest looking new ideas to use with my students.

Last year, during all the snow days, I found a teacher who was sending out Snow Day Challenges to her class.  She’d post them and get pictures of her students all day long having fun but still learning on their snow days.  I’m sure it wasn’t everyone in her class responding but it looked like fun.

I decided to give it a try, and sure enough about a quarter of my class rose to the challenge.  I shared the pictures with the class when we returned to school the following day.  Soon we had another snow day and another challenge was sent home.  Many more students responded.  I got many emails from parents too saying “what a great idea!” or “thanks for keeping my child entertained!”

Today, on our first snow day of the school year, I sent home a choice of challenges:  create a car that rolls and steers; or create a boat and see how many pennies it can hold before starting to sink.

And now I sit and wait.  Will it be a success again?!?