bugs. and they're brilliant.

So this summer my husband came up with seating arrangements that rotated 28 students through 5 different sets of 4 so that in a week's time, no one sits with the same person twice.  (more here)

It worked great, but after 8 weeks, it was getting tired.  I decided to make new assignments for the 2nd quarter.  But this time, I was downright brilliant.  Instead of having five days' worth ... I kept it to 4.  And I used the 5th group as my worst nightmare.  See, I placed into groups the kids that absolutely could not sit together under any circumstances.  And then I rotated the list and came up with 4 permutations in which those kids were absolutely not together, and still no one sat with the same person twice!   Brilliant, I tell you.  Brilliant.

The other thing I did with one particularly whiny class was that I allowed them to write down the one person they least wanted to sit with and promised them they'd only be together in one group.  Hee hee hee.  Since they only sit with any particular person once anyway.  Get it?  I'm so sneaky...

 I also wanted to shake things up, from the shapes, so I created these bugs.  They look like bugs from a computer game one of my children played many years ago.  Each child has a unique bug with four attributes: number of eyes, number of antennae, number of legs, and body pattern.  I printed them in black and white and let the kids color them, cut them out, and glue them to their INB, with contact paper over it. They turned out so stinkin' cute.

 and I'm happy to share the file if you'd like it ... the bugs, the shapes, or just the org chart for the groups.
beccaphillips72 (at) gmail.com