Transcript

The Ancient Egyptian Charm Bracelet incorporated various tasks. Students didn't really understand where this was going, but it all unfolded. Students were first asked to create the chain, but they actually didn't know it was going to turn into a charm bracelet. This activity started as a collaborative work activity, where students worked together at their tables to create a chain. I asked them to create the longest chain possible in 10 minutes. Once this task was completed, we looked at the table who had the largest chain and we asked them to talk about why we thought they had the longest one. As it turned out, that table worked very well together. Sharing tasks, communicating, working through the problem, and we quickly put together that the reason why they had the longest chain was because they were the group that worked best. 

After that task was completed, students were asked to bring their chain into the hallway. At this point, we assembled all of the chains from the various tables and students were asked to estimate the length of the entire chain. We hung the charm bracelet inside the classroom, and at that point, I told the students that we would not be working with it, and they would not know what we would be doing with it until the following day. This builds a sense of excitement among students because they want to know what is going to happen and what we're going to do with it. When students arrive the next day, I told them that we were going to create charm pieces. I asked every student to think about all those items and artifacts that we had seen in our literature circles in the various corners throughout the classroom. Of all those different things that represented items and artifacts from early societies. 

I asked them to think of one thing that really spoke to them and to draw it on a card. This card ultimately became a charm piece, which we hung to our charm bracelet. Once all of our charms were hanging in the classroom, on our charm bracelet, I then asked students to connect one charm, not necessarily the one that they created, but a single one to a real-life experience that they had. I modeled this exercise by selecting a couple of pieces myself and connecting it to my life. This also gave students an opportunity to see that I'm actually a person and not just their teacher. I have real life experiences and they too can see that some of these things connected to them in different ways.

Related References