Warm-Up: 10/24/13

We generally start our days with a warm-up assignment of some kind. Today's was a sheet of three logic puzzles. Most of the class worked through the first two quickly, but the third problem ballooned into a class-wide collaboration. The task was to decode a message written in Morse Code. Unfortunately, there were no spaces between the letters, making it a challenge to decipher.

The kids quickly started teaming up, then grouping, and eventually working together as an entire class to tackle the task. I periodically provided small hints, and played them the audio of actual Morse Code messages being transmitted so they could hear how the code has been used over the years.

What was originally intended as a brief get-your-brain-thinking exercise evolved into a 45 minute team-building activity. It was fascinating to watch how each individual worked to contribute to the group in their own way. Some had trouble with deciphering the code themselves, so they began working to help sort and organize the findings of the decoders. They eventually got it, just in time for our Math/Music/Latin rotations to begin.