On Wednesday our class participated in the first annual Global School Play Day.
What is Global School Play Day?
GSPD is an attempt to get kids away from video games, TV, and electronics in order for them to play. It emphasizes the need for students to have a chance to play without instructions or adult intervention. The students used creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking in order to play together as a class. The day is a reminder that students can learn many life skills just by being given the freedom to play and explore.
What did it look like in our class?
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- Collaborative organization by Mr. Helpern
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- Creative Rules Scrabble
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- Can I Play?
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- Geometry blocks
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- Competitive Scrabble by Mr. Helpern
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- Stuffed animal friends
Filled with excitement, every student in our class showed up to school talking about what games they had brought and what they thought the day was going to be like. There were only two rules for the day:
- You may not play by yourself
- You may not tell someone that they are not allowed to play
Students quickly got to work setting up games and figuring out their own rules. There was a heated game of Apples to Apples, and the first decision was, “Should we play serious or silly?” This was decided by a majority vote and of course silly won out.
Other students pulled out scrabble boards. One group had a very competitive game going with advanced vocabulary. Another group did not know the rules, so they decided to just make their own rules as they went along. They still found great vocabulary words.
Some students played with our geometry blocks and were challenging each other with the designs and patterns they created. They wanted to make sure pictures were taken to preserve their works of art.
Many students brought in stuffed animals and these were scattered throughout the classroom as companions or part of the play.
My favorite quote of the day was, “This is the best Wednesday ever! Can we do it again?”
What are your thoughts on play? Please share with our class and spread the word.
I think play means to have fun with your friends and family.
I learned that you don’t have to play by the rules in a broad game you can make up your own rules and still have fun.
Global play day was the best time I have had. It was the time of our live in school that day. I think we should do this more often it gets everyone talking and playing around. It was the best.
I definitely want to do play day again because it is really fun and it teaches us that we can do more things than just watch T.V and play video games. I think play day is really fun.
Do you think that play day is more fun than playing video games or watching T.V?
Play day was really fun we even got to play chess. We worked together,helped each other, and even played games like chess, apples to apples, scrabble, and shoots and ladders.
that day was the funnest because instead of playing video game you have freedom to play any thing.
Being able to play all day is inspiring because it shows that playing means using your imagonation.
I think that it was really fun and it would be cool if we could do this every other Wednesday. I think that Scrable was my favorite game of the day.
Why was scrabble your favorite game of the day?
I think GSPD was a really smart idea because now instead of playing on my iPad I play outside.It was really fun because we would play different games I never knew to play.I’m looking forward for it next year.
Are you giving up your iPad entirely to play outside?
Day of play was really fun. I think playing is anything that you come up with your imagination or a board game. I learned that it doesn’t matter what you play as long as you have fun doing it.
Global School Play Day inspired me because you don’t have to play Video Games, or watch T.V. You can just play outside and make up your own game!
I enjoyed playing Scrabble, Candy Land, and Connect the Dots.
I had a really fun day. Me and my friends played games like candy land,cubits and apples to apples.The Only thing I did not like so much was that it was on a minimum day.I wonder why it was on a minimum day?