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High School Kids Still Like Play-doh

Wow, what an amazing first week! After a summer of reading some great books, a week long math conference, and incredible conversations with colleagues I jumped in feet first and tried some completely new things this year.

I was nervous every day this week, so nervous my stomach was doing back flips every morning and for about 2 minutes before every class period. I didn't know if my new ideas were going to be successful or flop. That uncertainty was very scary and hard to push through. But I made it to the other side relatively unscathed.

Day 1- The Play-doh experiment
So I bought some mini cans of Play-doh and as I greeted my students for the first time I had them pick a color, find a seat, then read the directions on the board. 
Directions: Use the Play-doh to create something that you like, something that you don't like, and/or something that tells us about you. Please keep it school appropriate :-)
As I walked around the room introducing myself to each person individually and getting their name for my seating chart, they happily squished, rolled and created everything from soccer balls, to bugs, to plates of spaghetti. It instantly gave the kids a way to get out some of their nervous energy and sparked conversations between friends and kids that didn't know each other before they walked in the door. After I met everyone, I shared what I had made, a poor attempt at a dog. And it gave me an opening to share a few things about me that didn't seem so forced. Later I had them talk to their partners about what they made and why they like or dislike it. It was a great conversation starter student to student but also teacher to student. While they talked to each other I wandered around and eavesdropped and jumped in on some of their conversations. It was awesome!
 I will definetly do this again next year. I am also thinking about other ways that I can incorporate using Play-doh again during the year. My initial ideas are bouncing around having the students create something that would represent an idea, concept or topic we just learned. I still have more thinking to do on this though. Your thoughts are always appreciated. 
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