Interconnections Pull Game

Interconnections Pull game (30 minutes)

1. Students begin the game by getting into a circle, and discussing connections they have with each other.

2. After a brief discussion, student A takes the ball of yarn, looks around the circle, and finds a person with whom they have a connection (peer who lives close to them, a sibling, someone they worked on a project with).

3. When student A has found a connection he/she tosses the yarn to that person (making sure to hold onto one end) while they call out their connection. This continues until all students have established a connection, and all students are holding onto one section of yarn.

4. At this point, the teacher chooses pairs of students (B and C) to “explore their interconnections” by gently tugging on their yarn. (The intent is to have the class discover that when one person tugs a connection, the whole class feels the tug, or “ripple effect.”)

5. Continue with this activity, until you feel that the class understands their interconnectedness.

Following the Pull Game, have students write their thoughts and discoveries about their interconnections in their science notebooks. Students can draw pictures and label their interconnections, they can write a narrative of the process, or they can describe their findings in any other manner with which they are comfortable.