The more and more I teach middle school, the more jaded I become and the less willing I am to try new things. That being said, I had students make castles using legos today, and they turned out quite well!!!
Of course I prefaced the activity by saying if any legos were thrown across the room or at one another that I would immediately stop the activity and students would be subjected to bookwork (AKA copying facts out of the book). This led to of course all students doing exactly as asked. I can empathize with how a first-year teacher may feel frustrated when middle schoolers disrespect the activity and toss Lego bricks around the room. But with eight years of teaching experience, my classroom management skills have improved, and even my most challenging class was able to complete the activity successfully.
This of course motivates me to continue trying to do more activities to promote learning that are unconventional and outside of the box, but might result in more chaos.
