Telephone Book Tag

Over the weekend, our school was inundated with telephone books.  About fifty phone books were left at the front door.  I think they purposefully deliver when we are closed, so we can't refuse the books. No one in our school actually uses a telephone book.  For goodness sakes, even our kindergarteners know how to use google. In an effort to rid the front office of the telephone books, our clever, yet OCD, facilities manager said, "Hey Sellars, surely you can come up with some crazy, educational use for all these telephone books." We've worked together for a long time.  I know all about his OCD tendencies, and he knows I never back down from a challenge.

Although I love how independent my students are when it comes to technology.  There are a few skills that need sharpening.  One is looking up something in a long alphabetized list.  We do use dictionaries on occasion, but my students are more likely to lookup a word on dictionary.com. Many of the rowdy kids in 3B are a bit on the competitive side.  I've learned that any type of competitive game, keeps them engaged much longer.  We play many different types of games, so that all of the children have moments of success.

To play Telephone Book Tag. The students each stand behind their desk with hands by their side. On each desk is a closed telephone book.  The teacher begins the game by calling out a random name from the telephone book.  The first student to correctly locate the name is "it."  This student comes to the front of the room and randomly chooses another name.  After a student has been named it twice, he or she is crowned Telephone Book Tag Master.  Telephone Book Tag Masters no longer play, but help struggling students find names faster.  If you have the extra time, you could even make crowns from pages from the extra phone books for the Masters.