$$ Savings and Loan $$

Savings and loan is a fun learning strategy that gets the kids up and moving and interacting together. The idea is to write down a few ideas of your own on a given topic. Then to partner up together and get one idea from a friend that you didn't already have-"savings" and "loan" a new idea to your friend. At the end of the activity after matching up with several partners, each student has a much bigger "knowledge account". Mrs. Halloran gives them just a couple of minutes to write a list of words on the topic from their schema-what they already know. Next they turn their paper over to add their new ideas. We like to jam out a little while we move around- when the music stops its time to find a new partner to share ideas. This is a high yield strategy that reinforces ideas and concepts because they are interacting with peers in a fun way! We have a great time doing this in many different content areas.

They started using each other's backs for surfaces- I thought this was pretty clever :)