Mystery Box

     This week during my observation I really enjoyed watching "Mystery Box". What the teacher does is, she picks a student to take this box home with them, the child has a week to come up with what he/she wants to put inside the box. The parents help out by writing three clues that the kids say out loud to the class. After the child (with the help of the teacher) read these clues out loud he/she picks three students to guess whats inside, if they don't guess, the student who takes in the box shows the class.
This week a little boy took in the mystery box, his babysitter went in to watch him do this, the little boy who is fluent in Spanish and learning English walks up to her and says "No escribimos las claves" (We didn't write the clues).  She shrugs her shoulders and says "I didn't know". The teacher opens up the box and when she realizes there are no clues, she tells him what to say. The little boy says "Es azul y blanco" (It's blue and white), a little girl raises her hand and guesses "The sky?" He smiles and nods his head no. With clue number two, the teacher tells him to say it has a hat on, he shrugs his shoulders and says in a very low voice "Es un pitufo" (It's a smurf). The kids didn't hear and so they went on to clue number three, she again tells him what to say; "Es pequeno" (It's small), a little boy guesses "Is it a cool car?" He takes out the smurf and all of the kids start chatting away mentioning things about smurfs.
                                                                                                                                                                               He showed cognitive development by being able to translate the clues from English to Spanish instead of simply repeating, he is showing understanding. He was practicing social skills by sharing something with the class, he is improving his language/vocabulary.

     I really enjoy watching this activity go on, if I were the teacher I would continue to do mystery box, but for the next day I would have a paper bag set out with different objects for each student, so that they can practice giving clues on their own instead of just repeating. They can share with the kids in their table so that next time the child can give his/her own clues from the top of their head which should be easier than the bag activity since they would already know what it is that's inside.