Wild Things ...
During our study of animals, I read Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. After reading and discussing the story, my class turned their attention to the wild things in the story - which animals they resembled, their features, and their habitat.
The children were asked to create a wild thing with Lego blocks that could move in at least one way. While they worked in groups of two or three, I observed each group and was available for questions or to help with problems.
At the end of the period, the children shared their wild things with the rest of the class. They demonstrated how their wild thing moved and shared the problems they had building, as well as their solutions to the problems. The most common problem was balance. Each group wanted their wild thing to be able to stand. Some groups moved blocks from one place to another, some added blocks, and some had to completely restructure their wild thing. Every group came up with solutions to their problems!
The next day I began our language arts time by modeling a story about my own wild thing. During the mini-lesson,we worked on adding interesting details and reviewed capital letter and punctuation rules. Afterwards, the children worked on writing individual stories about their wild things. Their wild thing stories were revised, edited, rewritten, and put on display in the classroom.
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