ASP Tech Club Visit # 4

I was excited to work with the kids at the after school program during my initial visit, but as the weeks have passed it is becoming more difficult to find an activity that they show any interest in.  The limited access to the web has been the biggest challenge in finding activities that are relevant, and exciting.  I started off the project with big ideas, reaching to achieve a valuable lesson that the kids would be able to work on week after week.  The limits of access have turned the lesson into a boring activity, especially since the kids are tired from a long day of school.

Motivation of the kids has been a major challenge with the program, and at this point I am loosing my motivation too.  A major source of my discouragement is based on the limits to accessing technology in the school.  I also have book club the day prior to tech club and fortunately I was aware that the computer cart was having issues recharging the computers, so I planned on not having access to the laptops for this weeks lesson.

We have been working how countries are established, rules for government and learning about individual states in our country.  I personally own a board game that has trivia about all 50 states and for this weeks lesson we planned on playing the board game.  With 20  kids in the after school program, it was impossible to play the game as the rules stated.  I adopted our own rules, which divided the kids into small groups that allowed them to play as a team.  I placed the playing board under the ELMO so that the kids could see the hints that are listed on the playing board. Then we had each group spin the spinner for the different variety of cards and they had a chance to answer the question.  If they missed the answer we then allowed other teams to steal the point.  I also added bonus questions as I saw opportunities to add additional information to the question. 

The kids had a great time playing the game, and I feel that their learning was enhanced by the game and the questions about the states.  Even though technology once again presented a major obstacle, I felt like our learning objectives exceeded our planning.