Day 182 (4/22): Who's the Sucker?

I'm not sure how I get suckered into these things but somehow I was chosen to plan activities for a group of 3rd graders.  My neighbor called and asked if I would help plan a party for the 3rd graders to celebrate taking all of their state assessments.  I was thinking I could make some brownies and call it a day.  But that was not the case.

My neighbor called me the week before and said that she needed me to come up with several games to play with the kids.  How hard could it be to create some games for 3rd graders?  Well it was hard!  Imagine 75 hyperactive kids all wearing about 20 mardi gras beads around their necks ready to be entertained.  I can entertain adults but 3rd graders are a whole other breed of animals.  And I do not say that lightly -  they are animals!

Little did I know that the party was on a Friday afternoon after a fieldtrip.  So how hard do YOU think it is to contain, or entertain, kids late Friday afternoon after a fieldtrip?  I was not sure my games would entertain the little monsters.

We created 3 rooms  - a food room (like they needed any more sugar for the day) and 2 different game rooms.  One of the games I came up with involved cutting wrapping paper rolls in half to make troughs and then they would roll marbles from person to person.  This was the funnest room in my opinion and I would definitely suggest doing this in a classroom again.  It is a great team activity and you can make it competitive by splitting them up in a couple of groups and the first group to get it all the way around the circle wins.

The second game room involved moving beads from person to person using chopsticks.  Fortunately I grabbed some tongue depressers just in case the students started using the chopsticks as weapons.  Well what I found out was that chopsticks are hard as heck to use so it was a great substitute.  We split them up in groups of 4 or 5 and then had them try to create another necklace from transferring the beads with the sticks.

This game was difficult and I lost the kids after about 20 minutes.  If the teacher decided to leave the room, the kids went nuts and didn't want to do anything. Hmm..you think...Friday afternoon after a fieldtrip and they wouldn't cooperate?  Who would have guessed it?  Plus they had just been in the sugar (oh I mean snack) room and were bouncing off the walls.

I did get a very nice Thank You card.  Not sure if it was worth it but I did my civic duty and am very thankful I just have one child and not 30 at a time!