Lansing Elementary Counselor, Derek Thompson, Creates Spy Academy for Second Graders!
Derek Thompson, Counselor at LES, created Spy Academy: a hands-on Top Secret lesson for 2nd grade. Using the school’s focus on expected and unexpected behaviors and hidden rules in school settings, Mr. Thompson created a fun and engaging way to have students interact with specific scenarios. Mr. Thompson said, “Our lesson topic of Hidden Rules and Expected vs. Unexpected Behavior is a great opportunity for students to practice skills like sharing, taking turns, and working cooperatively as a team. The “Spy Academy” theme of this lesson tied into our Social Thinking curriculum, where students learn to be “Social Detectives” to collect clues about what is expected in social situations. Students were engaged in the lesson by solving puzzles, answering riddles, and searching for clues with blacklights. Then we “debriefed” as a class to talk about what they learned.
“I liked when we unscrambled the words. We got to use a blacklight and write the letters down, and then we unscrambled the letters and wrote the words.” - Madison Ford, Mrs. Croley’s class
“I liked the riddles because solving riddles is fun, and it’s my favorite part.” - Brooklyn Seebeck, Mrs. Gutshall’s class