Team work

Our Morning Meeting task last week was a team building activity where students were required to communicate in a kind manner, work together and problem solve.  Our goal was to pick up a yard stick and raise it over our heads for 10 seconds using only one finger and everyone must have a finger on the yard stick the entire time.  This task was anything but easy.  Before the task we talked about how to handle frustration with ourselves, others and how to work with people when you do not agree.  Complex ideas for 5, right?  

They rocked this out.  We tried this task for about 5 minutes, reflected, changed groups and tried again.  The students thought maybe being in groups with people of similar height would make this task easier.  We tried just that.  Our findings... that was not the case.  We will be revisiting this task many times to solve the problem and learn more about how to accomplish such a task.  

Comments from the students:
"This is a million times harder than I thought."
"Is it cheating if one person slides their finger underneath and uses their shoe to get the yard stick on their finger?"
"We can pick it up but keeping it up with everyone still touching is way hard."
"I love this but what is the answer to the problem?"
"I'm going to ask my mom, she knows everything."
"I need a different group, they don't listen to me and everyone keeps yelling."
"Why is it moving across the floor and not up in the air?"

Here is a peak into some big problem solving....