Last week we had the annual carnival at our school. Each year there is a day where students get to wear pajamas to school and the Middle School students are in charge of running a carnival. The day is structured so that each grade gets 30-45 minutes of time at the carnival. At the end of the day the Middle School students had time to play at the carnival as well.
At the carnival there were stations with games like a ring toss. There were also a couple of activity stations, like cookie decorating and face painting. At each of these stations the Middle School students rotated around helping the younger children. In addition, there was also a bouncy house, giant blow up slide and blow up obstacle course.
When it was the Middle School student’s turn to play at the carnival teachers were in charges of each of the stations. I was asked to go into the blow up maze and sit at the top because some students were congregating in the back and it was hard to keep track of how many students were in the maze. It was such a blast!
As the students were coming through I was supposed to keep them moving. The students were excited and friendly. Some students wanted to scare others as they came up to the area I was at. They were having the best time and it was so great to see them enjoying themselves and playing with each other. It was a lot of work to keep them moving through the maze, but still fun. When I have a chance to see students outside the classroom it really gives me so much more information about their personalities and interests. I also got a clearer picture of which students are friends and how close they are with each other.
There is one student who is an English Language Learner. I have not worked with her very much; she is my mentor teacher’s student. However, I have had interactions with her and she struck me as very shy and introverted. She also was very blunt, which made her hard to read. While I was supervising this maze, she asked me to help her up the ladder, I helped her and then she said she wanted to stay with me. I laughed and told her that would be fun, but I am here because I am supposed to keep people moving through the maze. She said ok, and told everyone else, “Keep moving!” I told her she can come back around and sit with me for a minute again. She was hilarious and so much fun; we have something that has connected us so now when I see her in the hall, she always smiles and says hi to me. Just that, made the whole supervising experience worth it!
rebeccaaf 