Summary
Students develop English language skills and vocabulary by exploring and naming shapes, colors, body parts and numbers by collaboratively creating Shape Monsters, recreating fairy tales by replacing a character with their Shape Monsters, and retelling their revised fairy tales in puppet shows. Students first researched shapes by singing shape songs and chants, reading books about shapes, and taking pictures of shapes they found in our school environment. Students utiilized ipads, the promothean board and hands-on manipulatives to complete shape research. Students participated in a Children’s Engineering Activity to collaboratively create a 3D Shape Monster. Students explored and evaluated several fairy tales. Groups selected a story for retelling with their Shape Monster replacing one of the characters. Students conducted research on fairy tale elements utilizing ipads, computers, and the promethean board. Students created a storyboard script for the retelling of their fairy tales and practiced and performed their puppet shows. Projects were shared through a blog with school and community members. A partnership with second grade students at another HCPS elementary allowed for dialouge and feedback from peers via Skype and the blog. For a culminating activity students invited their Kindergarten classmates, families and other members of the HCPS community to a “Fairy Tale Film Festival” where movies were shared and recognized.
TIPC Ratings
Students used a variety of print and digital resources, such as books and Puppet Pals App, to research shapes and fairy tales. Students also had hands on experience in their school environment identifying and documenting shapes. A great majority of learning about shapes was through experimental research.
Students worked in groups to take pictures of shapes found outside in playground using iPads during a Shape Hunt, to trace those shapes on the Promethean Board in centers, to design and create their Shape Monsters, and to create their puppets, script and video of puppet shows. In addition, the movies of their puppet shows were shared via blog with a second grade class at another HCPS elementary school so they could provide feeback about the movies and exchange ideas with my students. They also communicated with each other via Skype to discuss the movies and to ask questions about the Shape Monsters and their favorite fairy tales. Parents and other members of the community were invited to attend the Film Festival to support my students and provide addititional feedback of movies.
Students had to design and create a 3D Shape Monsters using recycled materials and various shapes according to meet the design brief requirements. Individually, the students reflected on their experience creating Shape Monster on a teacher created “reflection page”, as well as self-assessed their ability to design their Shape Monster using the the teacher’s design brief and their ability to work in a group. In centers rotations, they also used pattern blocks to create objects/animals and trace them on graph paper. In adidition, students had to determine how to incoporate their Shape Monster into a fairy tale and retell the fairy tale with Shape Monster replacing a character. They reflected on their performance during our culuminating Film Festival, when the students will viewed their movies with their peers, their parents and other members of the school and HCPS communities.
Students had to design and create a 3D Shape Monster using recycled products and various materials with the required body parts. With prompting and questioning, they also worked together to create a new version of an existing fairy tale (of their choice) , incorporating their Shape Monsters into their fairy tales. In each group, Shape Monster replaced one character (also of their choosing). The students made puppets for the other characters in the story and retold the new version of the fairy tale in a filmed puppet show.
