Short activitivity to show how flexibile our language is and how d...

Chris Scaturo this is hilarious. I almost spit out what I was eating when I read how to swim. I think this would make such an excellent opener to Collective Learning and Early Humans. I'm wondering about effective reflection questions....maybe, what types of words were most helpful? What was frustrating about this process?...

Year 11 of this!    Doing this today.    This year I am including the idea of lying.     I am focusing a little more on how language guided social dynamics.  

Chris Scaturo So, how did the lying go? Would love to hear your favorites.

 Chris Scaturo This is definitely one of my favorite posts in the community. Have you ever talked about gossip in this activity?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming,_Gossip_and_the_Evolution_of_Language

"You and me death together" is amazing. I can't wait to hear what lies students come up with this year!

 Chris Scaturo this is a great motivating activity for Collective Learning!  Quick question: I saw in the thread that Joe Baginski shared a doc with a list of words. Do you use something like that, or do students pick their own words before answering the questions?

If you have the activity in a document, I’d love to see it. I also like the idea of having students write a Tweet—it feels meaningful and is a creative way to connect past and present.

The lying was just a touch I threw in during one of the presentations.   Next semester I will totally include: "Tell one small, white lie."

We didn't have any really awesome responses this year buuuuut I did have a student who can do wild things with their eyebrows get up and give an impassioned responses moving her eyebrows up and down.  She took my nonverbal communication paragraph to heart.

Actually, I did get:  Smelly Tomato bread..... no like

Never, that seems to be another by product of complex language.   The kids do tend to notice that communicating is hard with such few words/ideas.   One of the things we talk about it how often and easy we talk.  Gossip (and the social support of it) seems like another benefit.

I have the kids pick words.  We get a word bank of 150-200 words.   The OER project activity gives them words to  choose.  I'll find the formal activity in a bit.

Here you go! 

 docs.google.com/.../edit

Thank you!Chris Scaturo  I had no idea this activity existed — and thanks to you, I’ll definitely do it with my students! I just shared it with a colleague at school.

Thank you!Chris Scaturo  I had no idea this activity existed — and thanks to you, I’ll definitely do it with my students! I just shared it with a colleague at school.