Zoom Team Building Lesson Plan

Grade Level: 2-5
Estimated time: 45 minutes

Objectives:

-For the students to work TOGETHER, as a team, in order to solve a problem.
-For them to think critically, without outside help from the teacher.

Materials:

-Copy of the book Zoom by Istvan Banyai
-A single copy of each page of the book, preferably laminated.
-Pencils
-Scratch paper

Lead in:

Explain to the kids that they will be putting together a puzzle, but this puzzle is a bit different than those they are used to. They are going to piece together the pages of a book called Zoom. Zoom is a picture book without any words at all so they are going to have to figure out what order the pages should go in with no help from words. Everybody will get a page of the book and from the info they can gather from the photo they will have to figure out where it is supposed to be in the order of the book. This is possible because of how the pages are laid out. As the title alludes to, the pages of the book “zoom” out as though you were looking through a camera lens and simply zoomed out. For example, one illustration shows a boy on a cruise ship, the next shows him from a distance, and the next reveals the whole ship. Finally, the viewpoint moves back farther and it turns out that the ship is actually a poster on a bus.

In Practice:

Hand out the pages, scrambled up of course. Each student should get one, though if there are too many students you could have a few pairs. Each student has 10 minutes to write down on their scratch paper as many important details as they can about the picture. Next, they  will turn in the page and use only their scratch paper from then on. At this point the class should be turned loose. The point of the exercise is for kids to learn to work together and not to simply follow directions blindly. Therefore it is up to them to decide how to order the pages. They will likely try and fail with different methods before figuring out something that works. While there is a correct order, there is not a “right” way to figure this out. If you see that they are completely stuck or if they are getting out of control some help/discipline might be in order, but it should be as class-led as is possible.

To review:

Collect their final compilation and go over it. They may have a few out of place but I would imagine that most will be in the correct order. Than ask the class to describe their strategies, what worked and what didn’t etc. Ask if they were able to figure out anything while everyone was talking, or if they had to actually listen, God forbid, to the other kids in order to find out where their page belonged. Ask them if they feel that any of the methods they used could work when doing other types of activities as a team.