Slice of Life 2022: 20 of 31- Wordle, quordle, nerdle, worldle...

      It's March, and March means the Slice of Life Story Challenge. All are welcome to join the challenge of noticing and writing about the moments of daily life that are stories.

"What are you up to?" I asked M, as I walked into her classroom. 

She and her grade-level colleague, A, had been going through their data and planning some small groups and other interventions during the afternoon planning time. For a couple of weeks, I'd been trying to get M. hooked on Wordle. Whenever I tried, she was about to make a phone call, getting ready for a meeting, having an email that had to be written thirty seconds earlier. 

For most people, I'd probably have given up. My thoughts might go something like this: Okay, fine. I have something fun to teach you, and you keep putting me off, and I'm done with trying to bring joy to your room when you're putting up so many roadblocks... (I'm not proud of those thoughts, but I'm being honest, here. It's March SOL!) 

It's different with M, though. I know she loves joy, and I know she gets carried away, and I know that she worries about fitting everything in, but still... I also know she LOVE words and language and any sort of game that involves them. 

"I bet this is a perfect time to learn Wordle," I said. "It'll take less than five minutes."

"I love Wordle!" A said. 

"I did not pay her," I said.

Without any more nudging, M pulled up Wordle on her computer, and the grid appeared on the Smartboard. (Truth that I didn't tell her: I had already solved it earlier in the morning!)

I coached her through the first couple of guesses, and in classic M fashion, she cheered and whooped as green squares appeared. And when she got saute on her fourth guess, she did a happy dance. Literally. All three of us were laughing. 

"I want to do another one," she said. (Classic response from a brand new Wordle player.)

"You can't," I said. "You only get one a day. It's a way to manage the obsessive people. But..."

"But what?"

"There's Quordle."

Without any hesitation, M pulled up Quordle, and the three of us solved it. That one was more authentic for me, as I hadn't done it in the morning. We had more victory dances. Full out dances. A mentioned Nerdle, the math version that I've been avoiding. The next thing I knew, the three of us were laughing our way through Nerdle, and I left them trying out Worldle. 

It all took a lot more than five minutes. And it led to a lot of laughter. 

But M can't wait to introduce these games to students on Monday. And I can't wait to hear the joy across the hall.