Question of the day on a whiteboard

Whiteboards are wonderful platforms. A centralized area where people can collaborate. The temporary nature of the erasing medium allows people to let down their guard. Whatever is written will be erased. Then a new fresh surface is ready for more ideas and sharing. On my creativity blog I share a list of whiteboard games.

My daughter’s kindergarten after-school program at the YMCA has a Question of the Day. Every day one of the teachers writes a question on a white board. As each child answers the question, the teacher writes the child’s name along with his/her response.

Here is an example, with the kids’ names blurred out for privacy.

Questions asked on the whiteboard thus far:

• If you had a pet dragon what would you name it?
• What is your favorite food?
• Who is your friend?
• Would you rather go camping or stay at a hotel?
• What makes you happy?
• What makes you smile?
• If you had your own store, what kind of store would it be?

Naturally, seeing my daughter’s answers every day is fun. We could ask her a question like this at home. But what happens when she is asked the same question in a classroom setting? I love seeing how her answers potentially shift in this context.

Being able to see all her classmates’ answers is also a blast. It’s a great way to get to know her classmates more. The range of answers shows fun creativity. You’ll also see how one child answers something, then a bunch use a similar response. For instance, “What makes you smile?” Once someone answers a flavor of ice cream, many other kids use a type of ice cream in their response.

I’m thinking of making this a series on my Twitter where I answer the Circle Time Question of the Day. All my answers will be under the hashtag #CircleTimeQuestionOfTheDay. (Given the length of this hashtag, nobody has ever used it. Which is kinda cool, this will group all these tweets nicely).

For now I’ll answer the past questions that have already been posted.

• If you had a pet dragon what would you name it? Fireball (or Tulli—Finnish for fire)
• What is your favorite food? Gnocchi with corn and other stuff my wife puts into the dish.
• Who is your friend? Abhay
• Would you rather go camping or stay at a hotel? Camping
• What makes you happy? When people comment on my blog posts
• What makes you smile? Seeing my daughters after a day of work
• If you had your own store, what kind of store would it be? Ok, I have a hard time answering this one, so I’m going to break this off into multiple points…
  • I would say comic book store, because I love reading comic books. I wouldn’t be a good comic book store owner, because I’m not an expert in comic books. I read mostly Transformers comics. So maybe my store would be an Everything Transformers Store. Oh man. That would be incredible.
  • I would say toy store, because I love toys. But cleaning up messy aisles would get old.
  • I would say art store, but then I wouldn’t want it to be a snooty gallery.
  • I’d like to have a store where I sell fun posters and art that I make.
  • I absolutely love art museum stores. That would be fun too.
  • I’d also be open to something completely quirky and niche. Like a rope store. All sorts of ropes sold. I don’t know anything about ropes. But I bet there are lots of types of ropes for all different uses.

Make sure to check out the daily hashtag #CircleTimeQuestionOfTheDay on Twitter.