Dear First and Second Grade Students,

Have you ever tried playing Chopsticks on the piano? Have you ever tried eating with ChopSticks? What was your first experience with ChopSticks like?

According to the Mobile Cuisine Chopsticks , when you use chopsticks, you involve over 30 joints and 50 muscles in the fingers, wrist, arm, shoulder as well as thousands of nerves. With persistence, practice, and patience you can use chopsticks to eat anything…even broth!

This week in library we will read the book, Chopsticks, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Themes of friendship, independence, perseverance can all be explored with this book. Chopsticks is about a pair of chopsticks who are the best of buddies. They do everything together, but when one gets hurt, they have to learn how to manage on their own.

Challenge:
Teams of five will attempt the “Chopstick Challenge”.  Each member holds one chopstick and needs to grab a one chopstick from a teammate without any sticks hitting the table.  Can you achieve five consecutive successes?  What does collaboration looks like?  How easy or difficult is it to work with a classmate you have never worked with before? Describe the team’s collaboration process. Explain the disagreements, the possible results of pride, frustration and compromise.

Watch the video of  the Jackson Academy below in order to get a better idea of what is expected of your team during the “ChopStick Challenge”!