In our home we do something each Monday night, called "Family Home Evening". This is encouraged in our faith to help teach gospel principles and family values in our homes. Sometimes we do gospel related lessons and other times we do fun activities that strengthen our family relationships. My daughter will soon be baptized, so we decided to teach a lesson that will her better understand the importance of the Holy Ghost (spirit) in her life. Without going into those specific lesson details, here's a summary of the activity we did with the kids that would make for a great lesson on communication or something similar.
We had a child sit on either side of a card table set on it's side. This kept them from being able to see one another.
First, we gave each kid the same set of duplo blocks and told one of them to build a tower however they wanted to. We then told the other child to go ahead and build what they thought matched the blocks on the other side. This felt frustrating because they couldn't see anything on the other side and had no direction or instruction.
Second, the child was allowed to describe the tower to their sibling on the other side of the table and help them to try to match what they had built. (This proved to be a great communication skill builder. The kids learned quickly that they needed to be very specific and make careful descriptions). They were so excited when they were able to match it exactly. If they didn't, we went back over where something went wrong and discussed ways to explain it better - or maybe it was a listening issue.
Lastly, we had the children do the same thing as before, but this time my husband and I got out the toddler music bucket and started making all kinds of racket! Obviously, this made it VERY difficult for the kids to communicate properly. The child listening couldn't hear the instructions and both were exteremely annoyed and frustrtated. This can be associated with things that distract us from listening well.
This activity was so fun for them. They kept trying to make their buildings/towers more complicated to see if they could effectively communicate it to the other.
We had a child sit on either side of a card table set on it's side. This kept them from being able to see one another.
First, we gave each kid the same set of duplo blocks and told one of them to build a tower however they wanted to. We then told the other child to go ahead and build what they thought matched the blocks on the other side. This felt frustrating because they couldn't see anything on the other side and had no direction or instruction.
Second, the child was allowed to describe the tower to their sibling on the other side of the table and help them to try to match what they had built. (This proved to be a great communication skill builder. The kids learned quickly that they needed to be very specific and make careful descriptions). They were so excited when they were able to match it exactly. If they didn't, we went back over where something went wrong and discussed ways to explain it better - or maybe it was a listening issue.
Lastly, we had the children do the same thing as before, but this time my husband and I got out the toddler music bucket and started making all kinds of racket! Obviously, this made it VERY difficult for the kids to communicate properly. The child listening couldn't hear the instructions and both were exteremely annoyed and frustrtated. This can be associated with things that distract us from listening well.
This activity was so fun for them. They kept trying to make their buildings/towers more complicated to see if they could effectively communicate it to the other.
going to use this idea for our family night this evening. thanks for the idea
ReplyDeleteThis is genius! I am going to use this in my CTR 4 class today. Thank you for sharing your talents!
ReplyDelete