On the last day of school we held a Wacky Gift Exchange. The rules were simple: bring a wrapped, non-store bought gift, and secretly give it to Ms Smith.
Ahead if time we talked about the difference between Wacky and Junky: ie a Barbie is ok, but a Barbie with hair cut off and marker on her face is not. The gifts ranged from helpful to hilarious, and there was a lot of laughing.
Here’s how the worked:
- The pile of gifts was placed in the middle of our circle of chairs.
- Student names were randomly drawn.
- The first person chose a gift from the pile and opened it, saying: “Wow, I always wanted a…..”
- The group responds with ooohs and aaahs.
- The rest of the people, in turn, can take from the pile or “steal” from another person, who can either take from the pile or “steal” from another player.
- Gifts can be stolen only three times.
- The very last player can take any gift.
As you can see in the slide show below we had a blast and everyone had a great attitude about the “gifts” they received.
(I am experimenting with different slide show formats–let me know what you think of this Image Loop. I do find ads & logos distracting, but is this tool still worth using?)