The Fortune Cookie Lesson

Photo by Meritt Thomas on Unsplash

The Before Breakfast Podcast is a podcast I often listen to while commuting. The episodes are less than ten minutes and I have gained some good productivity tips from it.

Recently, I heard one that covered the idea of writing yourself fortune cookie style messages to act as goals and motivation. 

Great idea, but I wonder what it would look like as a classroom activity where students would write a fortune for others in the same style. 

What makes this different is the thought that students would have to go through to write a message in the "fortune cookie style" and could make for a fun challenge.

What are you looking for?

"When I say go, do a 360 degree turn and count the number of blue objects you see", I ask my class of 19 First Graders. When everyone has reoriented to the front, I ask, "Without looking, how many yellow objects did you see?"

"You said blue Mr. Hammerlund!" they all yelled.

"Yes, but now I'm asking you about the yellow ones."

How to Be Awesome at Your Job: A Podcast for People who Love Learning Improvement Tools for Happier Work, Career & Achieving

How to Be a Better Leader by Being More Positive

Brenda Bailey-Hughes

 via @PodcastAddict

This year I have a challenging class. Period. There is not a night that I don't go home exhausted.
For the past few months I've been focused on looking for the bad - the negative; the bad behavior. All the while, I know I've been missing the good - good behavior, good learning, increasing skills, those students who are really trying. Those students I don't spend enough time with because of the others.

In the above podcast, Brenda Bailey-Hughes talks about looking for the positive, not the negative. She talks about looking for the positive and gives the exercise above as a way to hone in on the positive.

It is a fun exercise to do with a class and takes less than five minutes. I am going to try this with my students for a while to see how it improves their empathy and observation skills.