Coleman's Camp - Weekly Journal Entry: 3/25/2013

Week of 3-25: The absolutely beautiful weather allowed the Thursday group to be outside for half their time, playing a game called "Psychiatrist" (based off of a game I learned at Avila University during my undergraduate years).  In this game, several players have to develop lines of questioning and sort through answers that may appear contradictory or inaccurate as they face a circle of "patients" who all have the same issue.  The psychiatrist faces a circle of these patients and is given a few rules and guidelines they must keep in mind while they play, such as "every patient is being truthful and you cannot ask the patients' names."  This game allowed for intensive social skills rehearsal and practice, problem solving, and higher level/abstract reasoning.  The Thursday group also participated in a game I developed some years ago called "Tim's Toy Store."  In Tim's Toy Store, the students are provided with dozens of collectibles, toys, stuffed animals, or household items that they are largely unfamiliar with.  They are initially provided a nominal amount of start-up money (usually around $5 in actual cash) and allowed time to examine the toys and other items.  The goal is for each student to choose the item that has the most actual value; the team who selects the items worth the most money (cumulatively) wins and is allowed to select any of the items to keep, while the other teams receive nothing (or so they believe, until the end of the game).  Assigned to teams, they have some business and strategy decisions to make.  I provide them with a few "free" pieces of information that can help them sort through the toys and other items and begin determining/deducing relative value.  Then I offer levels of information for sale at leveled prices, but purchasing this information will decrease actual money (on hand).  There is a balancing act on what resources to use, when, and how much to acquire these resources.  There are a variety of other factors that can be brought in depending upon how the students are doing, their interest level, frustrations, and even individual versus group decisions.  The motivating factor is that the winners will actually win valuable items while the non-winners will not have anything.  Of course, after a review of the lessons learned and reflection on decisions, consequences, group dynamics, and use of resources, I have a reveal where everyone is allowed to take an item, with the winning team having first choice.

The Saturday group finished creating mouths and eyeballs for play-acting faces and we took a few photos of the results. They then spent the majority of their time participating in a scaled down version of the Scavenger Hunt the older Thursday kids had helped invent last week.  The scavenger hunt used the descriptive hints, the ability to blend into crowds, and decision making/problem solving skills.  Each student selected unique items from a box and then spread throughout the library in teams to hide the items.  Back in the main meeting room, Violet worked with one team while I worked with the other, brainstorming puns, riddles, clues, symbols, and even metaphors that we wrote down.  We then read the clues to the other team and set off to find the items and earn points for our team.