Any teacher with at least one months experience has had an assignment that the students just didn't get. The reasons that the students didn't get it could be any number of things:
1. They didn't listen.
2. The students didn't have enough prior background.
3. It was harder for them to grasp than t he teacher thought and so the lesson examples etc. were not sufficient to do the teaching job.
4. The teaching method didn't work and so a new method needs to be tried.
5. Or it may be just as simple as it was the last day of the week or the first snow day of the year.

All teachers have had this kind of lesson and you know that you will have to approach the lesson tomorrow from a different angle. But what about today, this very moment when the students have a paper in their hands and you know it will be a waste of time to score them because everyone or most everyone did it wrong.

Here is the solution. Have a snowball fight. Some years ago when this happened to me it was in the middle of the winter and the principal had just announced that "Due to students being hurt on the playground, while snowball fighting, that snowballs were now banned from the playground." This of course brought a chorus of moans and groans from my fifth graders that had built forts and thought that snow ball fighting ought to be the newest winter sport in the Olympics.

We had been working on some assignment that was a new concept and our first worksheet to see if they had learned what I thought I had taught. They had struggled through the whole paper and I knew that grading it would not bring great results and that I needed to teach the lesson again tomorrow in a different way.

We were just finishing this paper when the snowball announcement came. One student raised his hand and asked what he should do with his paper. Seizing on the opportunity to have some fun and take my frustrations about the lesson and their frustrations about snowballs out on something.

I told the class to hold their paper like this between their two hands and then I crumpled it between my hands. They gasped and said "Really" and I said "Yes" With a lot of giggles they did and I told them we would try it again tomorrow and then with a louder voice I shouted snowball fight and threw the paper. Papers went flying around the room, students scrambled to get a snowball off of the floor and throw it again. The teacher found a snowball to put down someone's neck. After two minutes I shouted "Freeze" and everyone stopped and went to their seats.

We laughed and told me how much fun it was. They wanted to do it again. Noting that the room was now really a mess and from somewhere more paper had appeared I told them that they had one minute to find all the snowballs and if I found even one that we would not do it again. This set them off again crawling on the floors, cleaning the room, filling the wastebaskets with unmelted snowballs. After one minute I searched the room even getting down on my hands and knees looking for snowballs. No snowballs were found.

I then explained that snowballs may not be used outside, but occasionally we might have a snowball fight inside. Over the years I learned to keep a hidden supply of snowballs for my own protection and the students learned that it was three minutes of fun and then back to work. These are the rules that I set for each fight:
1. It is a special time so no more than one per semester.
2. Close the doors.
3. Keep a supply.
4. Good for cleaning out desks.
5. Don't stand and watch.
6. Never warn the students when it will happen.
7. When it's over, it's over.

Past students have told me how much fun this was and also how it relieved the stress of the day. One day I had the high school student body president walk into my room and quietly asked me if I had had my snowball fight and if not could we have one? Of course, we did.

Caroline Mackay is a retired teacher with 37 years experience in teaching and educating students in the elementary schools. She wrote, produced, and directed plays and programs to encourage the display of patriotism, how to stay drug free, celebrate holidays and encourage physical fitness. Being artless herself she developed some Art Starts to encourage her students to express themselves through art. Making education an exciting fun experience she developed games and learning activities to keep the students engaged in the learning experience. She is the host of http://www.ezeducationplays.com where you can find plays that teach and entertain children.