The new year is here, and we're close to half way through the 2009-2010 school year. Students are back at school and are starting to adjust to using their brains again after a two week hiatus. I'm getting used to being on my feet all day and teaching a class of 31 kids.
Even though we've only been back in school for three days, students are already asking me when our next Memoir '44 History Club session is going to start. I'm going to have to sit down and figure out a schedule because I have several groups of students who want to participate, and they're all at different levels of familiarity with Memoir '44 and World War II.
I have three groups of students to accommodate. The first group is comprised of the students who were part of the Memoir '44 History Club last year. These students are in 5th grade now and many of them already had 10 sessions where we focused on the Pacific Theater.
The second group is made up of my students from last year who are in 4th grade now. Three of these students joined the 5th graders (and held their own) but there are many students in this group who couldn't join the Memoir club before Christmas because they played Fall sports.
The last group of students who have expressed an interest in the club are my current 5th graders. I don't know how many students from my current class would actually sign up for the club, but several of them have asked when they can join.
If I wanted to, I could try combining students from all three groups into one club for a few sessions, but I'm afraid their knowledge base it just too different. Students who where in the club last year are extremely familiar with the rules of Memoir '44 and have a solid understanding of D-Day and World War II in general. The current 4th graders know the rules of Memoir '44 but don't know very much about World War II, and my current class has been introduced to Memoir '44 but would need to practice the rules for several battles because they've had so little exposure to the game so far.
I'll have to think about this dilemma and see what I can come up with. Anyone have a suggestion?
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1 comment:
Is there any way for you to recruit volunteers? It would appear from your description that the challenge is really how to have you be in more than one place at a time.
You could attempt to do it like I've seen some Scout Troops, where there is a general meeting for about 15 minutes and then breaking up into groups based on skill level and interest.
But again, to do something like this requires more bodies, something appears to be in short supply.
How about a parent to come in and help?
If I lived closer than Silicon Valley I would be down there as your biggest supporter and volunteer.
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