Sunday, April 24, 2016
MSO Reflections
Earlier in the semester we posted about how MSO planning was going. Now that it is over what is one thing you learned planning? What is something that you and your group planned that connected with the kids? What needed adapting? How did you adapt and did it work? Finally, what was the highlight of the night for you?
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For a majority of the groups, I thought the game "alphabet soup" connected with them far better than I was expecting. It was kind of a cheesy game, but it got them to be competitive, and most groups, even after they were eliminated still cheered for their friends.
ReplyDeleteOne game that we had to adapt was human foosball. We had to add more balls in order to keep the game moving at a faster pace, because when we first started it with just one ball, it moved very slowly and not everyone was involved.
And the highlight of the night for me was doing the YMCA dance almost every single block whenever there was 2 or 3 minutes left before the groups had to move on to the next room.
One thing that I learned throughout the night at MSO is that it is far better to overprepare than underprepare. We had multiple games we had spent time planning but never even got to, which was totally okay! I also learned the importance of adaptability and shortening, extending, changing, etc. parts of your game to make it better apply to the kids, like Clayton mentioned with the Human Foosball game. With the Electricity game, we also made the lines shorter and multiplied them to keep it moving quicker and keep the kids engaged. We also turned it into a race at the end, putting the bean bags at a distance rather than right in front of the line, so they had to get up and run for it. Also, we learned that middle schoolers do NOT understand the strategy of tic-tac-toe, which was interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe dance parties we had at the end of each session were fun and it was fun to get the kids involved with that too. The goofier and crazier we were, the more likely the kids were to join in on the fun. Also, ending each session with YMCA was fantastic.
I am really thankful for having such a great team. Clayton, Maryssa, and Kennedy were awesome. I agree with Maryssa that it is better to be overprepared. We were really set when it came to the amount of games that we had. Something I learned is that "simpler the better" is a good strategy. It is very difficult to explain a game to 80+ teenagers at once. If i could do it again, i might do simpler games that maybe everyone previously knew, but with added twists. I thought that scatterball went over really well because kids love to throw stuff. (so do i) lol. Overall, i thought it went really well!! I think I might still be catching up on sleep.
ReplyDeleteMSO went amazing! I loved that event so much and I for sure want to be able to work it again next year. I had an awesome group with Maryssa, Becca, and Clayton, and I felt that things went very smooth for us. There were some things that I feel could have been improved on, but wasn't a huge deal. I felt that there should've been more communication between all of the groups. Our group and the group in Ariel I felt didn't have very good communication because it was decided that our group would be the group to play the game "Poop Deck." When we went to play the game and explain the rules, the kids were really confuse because they played the same game in Ariel with different rules. I felt that there should have been constant communication between our two groups.
ReplyDeleteI also felt that there was way too much dead time for our volunteers. We were super blessed to have so many volunteers in our station, but I feel that they should have assigned them to do something that is more involved instead of just sitting on the wall. Overall, i think the event went very well and very successful, and I really believe that the kids had a good time.