Week 13 Reflection

This past week I had discussed the different climate zones and types of weather with my seventh graders. The day after a long day of notes and reading I thought I'd reward them the following day with a fun activity that has them utilize the knowledge they learned while doing something other than notes. I came to the decision of using the game of BINGO as my learning activity. The day before BINGO I had talked it up and got the kids excited for the fact that we in fact were going to play. I thought it was going to be a big success and that everything was going to go great. Unfortunately for all parties involved, it didn't.
I have three seventh grade classes right in a row, so I got to read BINGO for a wopping 135 minutes in a row. That wasn't bad except for the fact that by the third period I was ready to tear up the questions as well as every BINGO card in sight...here is problem #1. Problem #2-? was that I didn't plan anything else for the period. Just BINGO. As it turns out, 20 minutes of BINGO is impossible to do with seventh graders, let alone 45 minutes.
What my biggest problem was the fact that I didn't plan anything else for that period. I immediately thought that they'd be interested in playing the whole time. Seeing the students drag halfway through class until the end was bad, however, me being bored out of my mind as well told the story of the day. During the second period of BINGO I saw that it was becoming a bear to do and no one wanted to do it. I tried to think of something else to do but I just couldn't get any ideas.
Looking back at it and looking toward the future I now know that a single activity, even something sounding as great as BINGO BONANZA will not cut it in a class period of 45 minutes. I need to plan more activities that allows my students to learn but in different ways.
Even though it was a tough day for me, this was a great lesson learned. In the future when games are being used in the classroom as a learning extension, I'll now know that more than that game is needed.