It's Okay to Fail

Every once in a while, I have a good idea (lol). Also, every once in a while that good idea doesn't turn out exactly as I want it to. Take, for example, today's 1st grade elementary class.

When I was a little younger (college days), I learned this fun little activity that I'll call the "Belly Haha" game. Starting with one person lying on the floor, the next person places their head on the first persons belly, and the line continues like that. The first person laughs "ha," the second laughs "ha ha," and so on. The goal is to get to the end of the line with each person properly laughing their number of "ha's." If at any point laughter gets out of control, the team has to start over.

If you can imagine this properly, the childish nature of the activity and the fact that the rules indicate "don't laugh" makes it hard not to laugh. It's really fun, it builds a little bit of trust (placing one's head on another's belly is kind of intimate) and it can be refreshing (laughter works wonders!).

So I explained this activity to the 1st grade homeroom teacher before class and she seemed to like it. In class, we practiced our numbers first, did some general review, then broke the class up into two teams (thank goodness for having pretty much even number of girls and boys). Me and one of the not-shy boys showed the class how it was done - they all started laughing! So once they lined up, we started the activity. But it wasn't going as planned.

First of all, little belly doesn't move as much as my example belly, so there was less motion to cause laughing. Second, some of the kids are kind of shy, so some of their laughs were almost inaudible. Third, not everyone gets along in the class, and when it came time for certain boys to laugh, they were too distracted with a minor squabble to remember their number.

All in all, it was a good effort and I think with a little more maturity, the game could be pulled off pretty well. That's why I'm thinking of using it in a junior high school class if I think the kids could use a good laugh.