Brain Break/Warm up: Snake Oil Competition
Do you ever wonder how to fill those last ten minutes of class? Do you need an activity to give your students a break in between lessons? Do you wish students would work on being more creative and being able to think more quickly? The Snake Oil Competition might just be your answer. I would recommend this game for 4th grade and up.
My favorite part of this game as always? You guessed it…there is no preparation on your part. Everything is set up for you on this website: https://www.snakeoilgame.com/sobsedu.
Object of game:
The object of the competition is to create crazy products by combining two of the cards listed into one product. The customer will choose which product they like the best and that seller wins the game.
How to play the game:
- Before you begin, explain how “snake oil” played an important part of history. Here is a good video to show in order to give them some background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaDsOJATX3A
- Put a chair in the middle of your room and 4 chairs up front. I have a stage, so my chairs go to the right of the stage.
- One student is the customer, and they sit on the chair in the middle of the room.
- Choose four students to be the “hagglers” or salespeople and they sit on the four chairs up front.
- Show the first list of cards. The customer must decide which “type” of customer they will be. For the first round, the customer can choose between being a “pirate” or “the tooth fairy.”
- The first haggler is shown the first set of six cards. I project this to the front of the room. They need to think about who the customer is and what type of problems this person might have. Then they combine two of the six cards to create a new product to solve the problem.
- I perform the first one to show them what I want them to do. This part is very important and will improve your students presentations, if you do.
- I tell the students that they have to talk for at least 30 seconds, and then they can give the customer up to 30 seconds to ask questions about the product. This is a good life skill and encourages the students to think quickly and creatively.
- Once everyone has performed in that first group, the customer announces the winner and why they chose that product.
Example of the cards. This is from the cards in Round 3 on the website:
Student Examples:
Here are two student examples where they were Santa Claus.
How to use in your class:
Kids in grades 4 and up are going to love this game. If you want to relate it to your content area, you could create your own cards with vocabulary words from your content. If you teach social studies, the customers could be certain people from history. What products would a past president want? A dictator? If you teach science, this is a no-brainer. You could play this as is. If you teach English, the customer could be a character from a novel. If you teach math, they could be different math terms.
Either way, this is a fun activity to get kids thinking creatively and quickly. It would definitely make a good brain break or warm up for your students.
Tip: Find Your Purpose, Your Reason and Your Fun
Do you ever think about your purpose, your reason, and your fun when it comes to your job?
A while ago, I had a principal that told us not to answer the question of, “What do you do?” with “I’m a teacher or I teach 8th grade.” She told us to think about our purpose. What do we DO? This lesson always make me think about my role as a teacher in the beginning of the school year.
What is your PURPOSE?
I started answering this question with, “I help teenagers to gain more confidence in themselves and in public speaking.” When you set your purpose, it helps you to stay driven in your job. When I taught 8th grade language arts, my purpose wasn’t to help kids learn to read and write. Surprising? I know.
I felt my purpose was to help kids LIKE to read and write. This isn’t always easy in middle school, and I figured it was important before they reached high school. Of course they learned skills along the way, but nothing made me feel better than when a student, who normally hated to read, would tell me they actually liked the books that I picked out for them. Or when a student would work hard on their Nanowrimo book and end up publishing it on Amazon; I knew they realized that writing can be fun. Here’s a past blog post about Nanowrimo.
My best friend in CA decided to start her own cooking business in which she makes delicious homemade meals, freezes them, and then delivers them to her customers. I know if I asked her what her purpose is for her business, it wouldn’t be to make dinner for people. I think her answer would be to make people happy.
So, what is your PURPOSE in your job?
What is your REASON?
I believe for most teachers, the reason they are in that school building, day in and day out, is because of the kids. The kids are the reason we show up each day. It definitely isn’t for the money! As you start this new school year, pay more attention to your reason.
This summer, I started coaching four kids on their public speaking skills. The kids created their own product for Destination Imagination, and it was such a hit that they turned it into a real business that is going global! (Side note: If you have kids that ski, you will want to check out their product called the Ski Pack. It was made for kids, by kids! It is like a backpack that lets your kids carry their own skis and poles, but it folds up small enough to fit in your pocket. Cool, right? You can buy your own pack for your kids at this website: https://www.puremountainfun.com/). Make sure you check it out when you are done reading this blog post, of course!
Back to these amazing kids. Since their company is taking off, they are going to present at a conference in Boston this November, and they need to be ready with strong presentation skills. This is where I come in; I am helping them learn to be more confident and poised. It is because of these kids that I was reminded of my reason while starting this school year. I am lucky enough to have a job where I know it will make a difference in the lives of each student in my class. At the beginning of the year, I make a promise to them that they will be better speakers and more confident than they are on day 1 of my class. They are my reason!
What is your FUN?
These past two years, I admit, I forgot what it was like to have fun at work. I went to work, taught my classes, ate lunch in my classroom, and went home. I have decided that I need to find my fun again. This week, I ate lunch with my friends, and I had a blast by going axe throwing at Primal Axe House (I highly recommend this place), with my colleagues. I laughed so much, even though I was terrible at in the beginning, and it felt good to just have fun with the people at my work.
How are you going to create your own fun for yourself and for your students?
This week, the staff played an icebreaker game called “Dude, More Dude.” You can find the cards for it on Amazon here. Our admin wanted to remind us that we are one big family that supports each other.
Basically, you get these cards that have different characters on them. Mine was a pirate. (That was funny since my classroom is decorated in a pirate theme.) You walk up to another person and say “Dude” as if you were that character. I struggled because the pirate was tough without using actions or extra words. If the other person has your same character, you join up to start forming a family and find more members.
I could see using this in class to form table groups. You would have to make sure there are only four of each character (or multiples of four), if you have table groups of four. I think the students would like this unique way of forming groups.
Take a moment
My teaching tip for this week is to take a moment to think through these three questions for your own job. What is your purpose? What is your reason? What is your fun? As a teacher who highly believes in self-reflection, it may just help you to take that first step in being more prepared for the school year.
Last Week of “Summer Judi” Ever?
Retirement?
It’s official. This will be my year of “lasts.” This is my 32nd year of teaching, and it’s time to celebrate my last year of teaching. I’m excited to spend it teaching my favorite subject “public speaking.” Teaching language arts was fun, but public speaking? Oh man, it is so gratifying to see the confidence grow in kids. They go from being terrified of my class to actually thinking that getting on stage is fun and powerful. I truly believe that public speaking strategies should be taught in every class.
My Plan
I would like to share a lot with you throughout the year. What warm-ups did I use? What funny things happened in class? What lessons of classroom management did I have to engage because it can look different on a daily basis? What lessons worked well that you could use in any content area? So, yes, I will share the good, the bad, and the ugly at times. Do you have subjects you would like to learn more about? Feel free to email me.
Subscribe
Make sure to subscribe if you want to stay updated on this journey with me. You can find it to the right under my picture. I plan to use it as a “journal” of my last year of teaching. I’ll be that old lady in a rocking chair one day, just cracking up while reading my own blog. Although by that time, my personal robot will read it to me, I just know it. If you’re interested in reading about the trials of my first few years of teaching, you can find it here: My Story: Trials of a New Teacher
Good luck to all of the teachers this year. We need each other and definitely can’t do this profession alone.
Sketchnoting – When Students Take Visual Notes
I love when you teach sketchnoting to a 6th grader in another teacher’s class, and she still uses what you taught her the following year in your own class. This is her sketchnote while learning about how to create a “killer” slideshow presentation.
You can read more about sketchnoting on my old blog by clicking here.
You can see why students love sketchnoting by watching my students’ video about it.
Teaching Tip: Get Your Students Thinking Like MacGyver!
What Would MacGyver Do?
Do you remember the television show “MacGyver”? It was one of the great television shows that started in the 1980s. MacGyver was a secret agent who could get out of any problem just by using ordinary objects around him. There’s nothing like hooking your students when you tell them they get to be secret agents!
Getting Started
Choose three volunteers to come to the front of the room. Those three are secret agents who end up in a precarious situation and have to get themselves out of it by collaborating together. Ask three different students in the audience to name an ordinary object. For example, the three objects could be: a rock, a purse, and a pinecone. Then give the “agents” a life-threatening situation (or ask the audience for one). For example: You are hiking in the Rocky Mountains and encounter a zombie. Working together, the three agents act out how they would use the three objects to escape their situation. I usually give them a minute or two to discuss their scene before they start. Remember to discuss what public speaking skills they used after this activity.
Using It In Different Content Areas
Tip: You could also relate the content that what you are teaching. The agents could be locked in a pyramid or tomb, or they could be in a “sphere” with no windows or doors. Their tools might be something you use in science (microscope, funnel, googles).
Why This Works
If you’re trying to think of a way to engage students in your content area, while also working on their critical thinking skills, then this MacGyver activity is the way to go. You could change to the title to, “What would a scientist do?” “What would a mathematician do?” “What would a historian do?” Of course, my favorite part is that it gives students a chance to work on their communication/collaboration skills.
If you’re looking for another great way to engage students for your vocabulary unit, check out my recent post, “Vocabulary Improv.”
Teaching Tip: Keep it Real
“And the YouTuber of the Year goes to….”
One of my favorite parts of teaching is creating new units for my public speaking students. Each semester, my students vote on the projects they want to work on in my class. A lot of the time, I haven’t even created the unit yet, but I have an idea of how it can look. That is what happened with my “Rant and Rave” unit this month. The students voted on doing a “rant” speech, and I wanted to find a way to keep it real with their teenage lives…I just wasn’t sure how to do it yet.
How It Started
The idea for this unit started when some of my students were talking about the YouTubers Logan Paul vs. KSI. I totally pretended like I knew what they were talking about (and Googled it later), and I found myself watching Logan Paul videos for a little while. Of course, I had heard of him, but I had never watched his videos. I wondered how this guy became so famous. I started thinking about how I could tie in my students’ love of YouTubers with their speech, so I texted my niece, Gabrielle, who is the Brand Director for Ace Content in New York. She has worked with YouTubers in the past, and she taught me how YouTubers become paid by different brand companies. I also learned the term “friendertainment” (when people feel like they are getting their media through a friend), and why that is important as a YouTuber.
Next, I looked up YouTube videos where people are ranting about something that bothers them. I needed exemplar videos to show my students, in order for them to get the right idea. There are some hilarious videos out there (check out the one by Tobuscus about changing your password), and we enjoyed critiquing them together. I also came across a great unit on Teachers Pay Teachers by Room 213.  If you are thinking of trying this unit, you definitely need to check it out.
Of course, I also know how much my students love a good competition, so I decided to make this speech a competition to see who would win “YouTuber of the Year.”
The Results
I loved this speech unit. It was hysterical to find out what bugs teenagers (bathrooms, parents, teachers, people who write checks at grocery stores, elevators, etc). The students did a great job, and since it was only their second speech, it was fun to see how their skills had improved since their pre-assessment speech. We learned a lot about each other, and laughed…A LOT!
YouTubers of the Year
When the students finished their presentations, each class voted on the “YouTuber of the Year” in their class. Of course that person won a big prize (not), but they did win bragging rights. If you would like to check out some of the student videos, you can click on them here (they have been shared with the student’s permission):
Leave Me Alone When I’m on the Phone
Teaching Tip
When you start to create a new unit, think of how you can keep it real with your students. What do they talk about with their friends when they think you aren’t listening? How can you tie that topic in with your curriculum? Take a chance. Try something new. You never know, your students might actually surprise you.
Teaching Tip: Create Interest When Students Show Up For Class
I’ve learned that it’s easy to get students excited for class by changing up the little things when they enter the room. Today, I loved seeing my students smile when they showed up for class. It was more fun to do it this way than to hang the sign on the door. This was the first day of our “And the Award Goes To…” speeches. Who doesn’t love to be called a “VIP”?