Snowball Fight- Monday Aug 15

Today was a 30 minute class. We had 13 students in the class, and since we had advisory before first period, the kids seemed awake. Mike wanted me to begin the class with the opener activity. We did a snowball fight. I tried to be enthusiastic after Mike's introduction, and I asked the students to take out a sheet of paper. Some of them didn't have paper or pens and we sorted that out. i told them to write their names in the middle of the piece of paper which I had to repeat three times. I then told the students that they had to answer one of two questions:
1. Where did your name come from?
    - I followed this with a story about how my name came from my mom's favorite soap opera character and     Mrs. Wash and Mrs. Ruppe said their's did as well- point of interest
2. If you don't want to answer that question or don't know the answer then tell me what your favorite movie is and why you think its better than other movies.
    - I said "My favorite movie is Superman Returns, because I love Superman more than any other super hero

- The students took about 3 minutes to answer, and one or two students took longer than anticipated. I told the students to crumble up their papers and we had a small snowball fight. I think my enthusiasm for the game and Mike asking to get hit with a snowball really helped this along.
- The students each went around the room and told the story of the person whose snowball they had acquired.
- The whole activity did take about 15 mins and I thought it would take ten

Problems:
- I should have made questions that were more comparable in thought process. One was very personal and one was not- most students chose the movie question
- More specific directions about how we will go around the room and answer. Ideally the student who we are learning about will be next in line to read their snowball, but I did not stick to that like I should have.
- Give the students the right to pass and not participate int he actual snowball fight. Over stimulation for students who may be in special ed could be a very bad thing that I did not anticipate.
- I modeled a little bit how to answer the questions but I did not model how to read aloud the information on the snowball