An April Fools' Prank Gone Wonderfully Awry!

What started out yesterday as a well-planned April Fools’ prank turned out to be something much more J  Our principal and I orchestrated a plan for him to come to the classroom at the end of the day during Madness Math, which he did.  He told the boys and girls that his boss, the Superintendent, had come in and seen all of our UW vs. WSU rivalry stuff and demanded it stop and we all get along- aka be on the same team.  To see if we were going to have to be Cougs or Dawgs for the rest of the year, he was formally observing me and how well I taught/how well the kids learned would determine if we could stay Huskies or would have to become Cougars!

The kiddos couldn't believe it but when they realized we were "serious", they got serious.  Our prank was going well and the kids were very engaged in the lesson J  They were working on their white boards to address questions like:  if 4 games were played over the weekend- how many total teams played? And, if there were 16 teams left on Friday and 2 teams play per game- how many games were played over the weekend? 

Then the announcement was made that we were “taking too long to solve the problems which reflected poorly on my teaching” and that “we clearly needed a Coug in charge and would have to take down all of our Dawg gear and anything purple/yellow”.  The kids thought he was kidding, but I played along and went around taking down all things Husky. 

I was still under the impression we were going to shout APRIL FOOLS’! at some point… until the principal said that if the students could solve one last problem in 2 minutes or less, he’d reconsider.  The problem was: can you determine how many teams are left in the whole tournament?  Yes or no, show your work.  They worked in partners and I’m not sure I can say the kids have ever worked harder!  They were discussing, collaborating, thinking and rethinking and then not so shockingly… they started to hold up their boards with work that clearly and correctly showed that yes, they could determine how many teams were left in the whole tournament!!

It was such a treat getting to see the kids apply newly learned skills to a real life situation.  So much so that ultimately we couldn’t tell them they’d actually done it all for a joke.  We wanted them to think they’d used their newly learned math skills to save our Husky pride, because they DID!  So, what began as a prank took an unexpected turn for the better J