Would You Rather

On Wednesday I welcomed my students to their new classroom (we have a year round school system). I showed them around the classroom, explained the rules and behaviour system, showed them their desk and toured the campus. Since Kindergarten and First grade are on the other side of the school campus, we had to make sure they knew were the bathrooms were and so forth. Over break we made a big switcheroo. The second grade classroom was moved into the fifth grade, the fifth grade was moved to a spare classroom, and all our stuff was shifted. This way second grade would have more space for the age of the students.  The change threw students off the first day of school.

The first few days I try to get to know my students a bit. They usually tire quickly and need more breaks. So after working real hard on some phonics and writing assignments we took a break and did a “getting to know you” activity.

I took them to the back of the room and had them stand in the middle. I explained the rules of the game Would You Rather. The teachers had played this game the day before when we met together, so I thought it might be interesting to see how my second graders would respond to similar questions. I told them that they should move to the side that they would rather do/be, talk to the other people on that side, and then we would share.

The first question was: Would you rather have the ability to fly or to be invisible? They separated and began to talk. That was the fun part! I love hearing kids share with each other. When I was teaching Kindergarten this game would have never worked. Little children don’t know how to work together yet, or to discuss or reason as a team. Afterward they shared their answers. The children who would rather fly would like to be high in the air and go real fast. The children who would rather be invisible thought it would be fun to play tag and no one could find you.

Then I asked: Would you rather be really small or really big? Everyone went to the really small side. My favourite answer came from one of my out-of-the-box boys. He said that he wanted to be able to sit on a flies back! Gotta love kids and how their minds work.

My final question was this: Would you rather know about God but not tell anyone or not know about God and tell everyone? This one got them thinking. The majority of the kids moved to the side where they know about him but don’t share him. Four children went to the side where they don’t know about him, but still tell about him.

I asked the one side, “Why would you want to know about him but not tell anyone?”

One little girl said that sometimes people don’t want to hear about God and so they get mad and might even hurt you. Another child said that the Bible tells us to know about God and believe in him. One little boy said that if he knew about God then he could go to heaven.

I then asked the other group, “Why would you want to not know him but still tell people?” They thought about it for a bit and then they said, “God teaches that we should tell others about him.”

Then I began to ask questions. Doesn’t the Bible tell us to know him and make him known? If you don’t know Jesus but yet you are telling people about him, how do you know what you are telling is true? Are you being obedient if you keep the good news to yourself? Would you be leading people astray if you don’t really know what you are telling them?

We talked a little about how we are called to do both. If we know about God we are expected to tell others about him, even if they don’t want to hear, even if we will get hurt or laughed at. We talked a little about Paul and what his life was like.

I then told them that I would rather be in the middle: to know him and make him known to others.

What a wonderful teaching moment God gave me! I am excited to teach my eighteen little ones to go deep into God’s word and to watch their faith and understanding grow.