Video Tips from Students, Part 2

In my last post I discussed how sometimes a tip from a student about what might engage him or a group may lead to a great activity. Another example came from a student who offhandedly mentioned that he likes to watch EvanTube, which he said had fun "how-to" videos. I checked it out, and EvanTube is a "family-friendly" channel full of challenge videos, among other things. I discovered a number of them could be done with minimal or simple materials, and thought that the process of figuring out what is needed, the sequence and overall plan would be a good language, social and executive function activity. The two activities I did with my group turned out to be some of the most fun ones I had this year.

The 3 Marker Challenge turned out to align very well with our social goals as a group and Ward/Jacobsen's Get Ready/Do/Done (GRDD) model. We watched the video:



And interactively completed a GRDD graphic organizer that when complete would look like this (note that the numbers next to the do-steps are estimates of time in minutes, and we used a clock to map these out):

You can access this Google Drawings file here and if you like, make a copy for yourself (File>Make a Copy if signed into Google Drive) to use as a template. It was a very fun activity and we practiced a lot of different skills.

The following week, we tried another! First, we quickly did the Yanny/Laurel experiment (which, incidentally now has its own EvanTube vid), which is a good social activity that underscores that people have different perceptions and perspectives (but pssst. It's Laurel). Related to this is the channel's Backwards Word Challenge:



Great again for goals of executive function, social, and humor but also phonology and just listening! Similarly, we did a GRDD activity- I try not to gather materials for students but ask them to do it, and this included finding an app to do the task. You'll find a free one easily! The results were hilarious and all had a great time again practicing some important skills.