Vocabulary Building, Adventure & Team Work!

The Young Readers' Club members had an unusual problem to solve. They were stranded in the Amazon Rainforest after having got separated from their camping team. They must move but can't carry all the supplies. Together, they had to work in teams to finalize the list of 10 items that they must carry in order to survive in the wilderness. The list of items available for them to choose from, were provided. Not an easy task! Every item there seemed important but it is impossible to carry all. To survive, they must know more about the rainforest.

All the teams put their heads together, each young reader bringing to the table their strengths. Some had studied about the Amazon rainforest and were armed with facts such as the hottest river that runs through the Amazon rainforest. Obvious fact of course was that it rains a lot there and hence protective gear was important. Discussions also centered around the kind of food they could eat in the jungle once canned supplies ran out.

"If only we have a satellite phone!" said one of them as they worked around navigating through the jungles!

Problem solving as a team

Kudos to the young readers who readily adapted themselves to the fictitious situation and actively thought about smart ways of solving the problem in just 10 mins. Diverse 'what if' scenarios rolled out. Less priority items were discarded or replaced by something else.

Leadership

Working in groups of 3 or 4, requires someone to lead the discussion, take notes, resolve conflicts etc. Even choosing a leader takes effort unless someone of course readily volunteers.

Heated debates

Collaborative activities such as this one are bound to have conflicts and disagreements. The desire to be right is strong in everyone's mind. But to survive you cannot spend a lot of time arguing pointlessly. You got to move. This realization came about amongst the spectators in each team that saw their team mates fight over something rather inconsequential such as if binoculars was essential or not!

Out of the box thinking

Does one stick to the narrative or think further and figure an out of the box solution that enables us to have more than what we are allowed to? Someone or the other in either of the teams would come up with a random idea that doesn't appear in the narrative and ask if it is possible to do something that doesn't look obvious in the narrative but there may be some room for flexibility.

Side benefit: Vocabulary Building

Navigating through the problem also meant, understanding any new word that comes up in the list.

End Result

All teams presented their final lists backed up by solid reasoning. Listening to one another, each team's list got better. Whether, any one of us actually end up going to the Amazon Rainforest or not, we know many words related to camping there now. Plus added bonus, we have got one more team work experience under our belts.

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The Young Readers' Club is a book club for the 8-12 age group. We also do vocabulary building activities and mini writing lessons for a little variety!

Writing programs for the 9-12 age group- Young Writers' Club Jr.  

The Young Writers' Club program for the 13-16 age group offers a weekly platform to read and discuss curated articles from the news, observe writing approaches and practise one's writing skills.

Tween Tribune  is an online magazine for the Young Writers' Club (Jr.) program for tweens. Weekly updates of our discussions are published. Once in 6 months, the best of writing by the tween members is made available to read.

Musings from the Young Writers' Club is an online magazine showcasing the work of the amazing teen writers