Just as I Hoped

I'm kind of strict when it comes to electronics in my homeroom. When the bell rings, the expectation is to power down all devices and, if the announcements aren't on yet, talk to the people at your table. Reading is okay, too, but I take seriously the idea of using homeroom in middle school as a way to build relationships that will help students feel connected to their school, and in-person interactions are needed even more than ever after the disruptions of the pandemic.

Personal devices and, to a lesser extent, independent reading are counter to the notion of community, and that's why I discourage them, even on Fridays, which are designated as "reading" days in homeroom. Luckily, we have staff and students who do recorded book talks every week, and those offer a communal experience around reading, but the challenge of how to cooperatively use the other 30 minutes of the period remains.

In the past, I've had students choose a book that we read aloud together, and that's pretty good, although once a week is not quite enough to solidly hook the group. I also have a few games that we can play around the books they are reading to make our time more social and interactive. And this year, a couple weeks before winter break I was poking through the game cupboard in my room when  I found my mother's set of Bananagrams. My mom loved all word games, and our family has spent countless fun hours pushing tiles around to make winning words, so I set the bright yellow canvas banana bag on my desk, thinking it might be a good way to spend a Friday morning.

The game was a hit! The sixth graders play in teams of two, working together to arrange and rearrange their tiles into little crosswords. I team up with the girl in my class who has speaks limited English, and it's kind of spontaneous little vocabulary lesson for us. "Do you know the word 'poke'?" I might say, and then give her a little one in the arm if she says no. From time to time, I glance up from our game to give hints and advice to the other teams, and after a few weeks of playing, I see improvement in their strategies. Best of all, we are all sitting together around one of the tables in my room, talking and laughing and thinking about words. 

It's awesome!