Digging Holes

I had one of my favorite teaching moments this week. We are reading the book "Holes" by Louis Sachar in my class. I highly recommend the book if you haven't read it or seen the movie. It is about a boy who gets wrongly accused of a crime and has to go to a sort of correction camp where they have to dig 5ft holes every day to "build character." In reality they are helping the warden look for a treasure.

Anyway, we were reading it and I asked my students how long it would take them to dig a hole with a 5ft diameter and 5 ft deep. They commented that it would be easy. Then I had an idea...we would try it out. Back behind the school are trails and barren land. They have exactly 12 shovels at the school and 2 picks which is a perfect number for my 14 students. My plan was to put them in 2 groups and have them try to dig a hole. I expected them to try and then get frustrated and give up after 10 minutes. To my surprise they LOVED it! So instead of spending 1 part of a day digging holes we spent 3 afternoons working out in the sun. I couldn't believe it and was laughing when I could use "hole digging" as leverage for good behavior. They knew I would take it away from them and make them go inside if they weren't working together. They even worked really well together and encouraged everyone. Also, everyone worked which is a change from their group projects in class. I think they learned just as much from that project as from anything I can do in the classroom. Also now they can identify with the book

My favorite question was... "Miss what are we going to do when we finish these holes" And I responded "Dig more holes of course" What I find most surprising is that no one asked my why we were doing it. I would have told them...to build character.
One group making use of the pick. Notice Kency taking control. She was the most skilled at digging in this group.