Puzzles

Our first two days back at work were amazing. We did some great ice breakers, dived into data, and talked about how to move forward as a staff to continue to be awesome.

Seriously, we had memes like this from our admin.

One of the activities we did in our grade level Olympics (yes, seriously) was building puzzles.

However, the pieces were mixed up.  So, being the loud problem solvers that we are, we freaked out then ran around swapping pieces with other groups.  

The point wasn't to build the puzzles.  The point was to see how the team dealt with challenges and worked together.

I loved the message, so I bought some dollar store puzzles and began making a version for my own classroom.  I lettered the pieces on the back of each puzzle piece and carefully mixed up the bags.  B looked at me like I was crazy, but he should be used to teacher antics in the name of team building.

I gave the task to my students:

They did amazing!  There was no yelling, running, or fighting about the pieces.  (Unlike the teachers...)  They simply thought there was a mistake and moved on.  

I was beyond impressed with their problem solving abilities and team work.  Way to go munchkins!