The first video is just ideas. The When the Wind Changed is using a book to generate an art/craft lesson with minimal trips to the photocopier. The Emotion Dolls is just using plain paper. They're activities built more by assembling ideas in a logical order rather than assembling resources.
So we're all familiar with the concept of PE games and how we don't need lesson plans for them. We are aware of the rules and how we can modify them to make them interesting. Playing tag for example, you can just get tagged and be out. You can also change the rules so that people can re-enter the game by crawling between each other's legs incorporating decision making; if I free them, will it slow me down so much that they get me "out"? Then there's rules like Toilet tag designed just to appeal to the student's humour. When you get tagged, you drop to one knee and put one arm out in front of you. For someone to "free" you they sit on your knee and push your arm down to "flush your way to freedom".
Because we are aware of the game and it's variants we just keep it in our mental "CRT toolkit" or "Box of Tricks" without the need for any physical resources. It's just knowledge and the same goes for making kites in craft and many other things. Our brain - the knowledge within it - belongs in our Bag of Tricks as much as any game or printable resource.
The above exercises have physical resources of course but they are common in most classrooms. It is taking the same basic concept as the PE games and populating our mental toolkit with classroom activities too. While they certainly reduce your reliance on printables and/or ICT the main point is that you should be considering your brain as part of your toolkit.
Having these sorts of ideas ready to go are a good way to provide a flexible approach to your classroom.
Being resourceful is just one of those things in my "CRT toolkit" that helps me drift in and out of schools in a seamless fashion. The concept is simply not to use up resources that the classroom teachers have earmarked for special purposes. The added benefit is that I also do it in a way that surprises many. No lesson plan, no resources left, still a full day of engaging learning with minimal resources. Yes, I use worksheets and ICT when they are the right tool for the job but I also bring a bit of an inventive perspective into their classrooms.
The "When the Wind Changed" flip book was a joint effort. Another teacher and I had groups of students that didn't go on camp. It came out of one of those concepts from my bag of tricks. "Be resourceful and engaging" using a book to base the activity on and provide engagement and motivation for the students. I've used it since as a CRT like I was writing "MEL WOZ 'ERE 2013" on the wall with a nice thick permanent marker. When I leave the classroom there's a persisting resource created that keeps me in that room on a long term basis. It's triggering reflection in the students and teachers about my day in the room and it gets me asked back into classrooms.
The Paper Dolls was also an "on the fly" creation. I needed to explore emotions and how they effected students and knew the "people" from the supermarket were in my toolkit. Since then I've also had my husband show me how to cut paper dolls (to my embarrassment, as he threw back his head and laughed like a musketeer that a 40 year old "bloke" had to show his wife something traditionally "a little girly"). Get the folding and scissors in there too so I don't have to pay for the people myself and get some fine motor skills in there from the cutting and so on.
Another concept from my mental Bag of Tricks; Always kill 2 birds with one stone of you can.
It's these sorts of concepts that have led to things like the "One Book Lessons" I share in my PD presentation and sell online. A lesson that you get intensely familiar with and can differentiate at a moment's notice for a variety of class levels. They provide a couple of hours of solid, engaging learning and all you need to take with you is a book to base it on. Everything else is in your head or in the room already.
Not to say there's not a place for ICT, for printables and pre-prepared games and activities that are reliant on stuff you carry around with you. Far from it. Considering your brain as part of your CRT toolkit though is something you will not come to regret over time. We all do it subconsciously of course but considering it in a conscious way can certainly bring about some terrific results.
Regards,
Mel.
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