Swamp Machine

The grade 6 and 7 classes had another team building challenge to complete in PE last class called Swamp Machine. The object of this challenge was to get their entire team safely across the swamp (gym). However, there were a few rules that made this task difficult and the teams would have to rely on each other to be successful. These rules were:

1) No one could touch the swamp with any part of their body
2) No one could take more than 2 consecutive trips across the swamp
3) At least 2, but no more than 4 people must be in the swamp machine when it is moving

If any of these rules were broken a penalty was enforced, usually involving one or more team members having to return to the start.

The swamp machine consisted of two gymnastics mats attached together to create a little snowmobile or tank like track that the students sat inside to push and move across the gym. The students thought this was a ton of fun until they realized how hard and tiring it was to push across the gym, especially since they had to make multiple trips in the machine. Teams quickly adjusted their strategies to make sure they were taking the fewest amount of trips across the swamp without breaking any of the rules.
I called a few people out during the challenge on touching the swamp, but was really impressed on how a few students called themselves out on breaking a rule. Even though this hurt their team at the time they knew it was the right thing to do. One team had completely finished the challenge and then realized that two of their team members took more than 2 consecutive trips across the swamp, so they started all over again. I thought this showed great character on their part to start right over from the beginning again.

All of the teams were successful in the end and I could see that they were proud at what hey had accomplished as a team. Way to go everyone!