Finally more fables

This time last year, I was conducting an exciting online project with a group of Kindergarten (Early Stage One) students during which we constructed a wiki, and used it to jointly-construct four core values fables.

This year, I’m repeating the unit with a new cohort. While last year’s project included an annotation page in which I recorded the progress of our learning, this time I’m also preserving notes from our Circle Time brainstorms and hot seat activities.

For example, in Week 3 – Favourite animals suggested for possible use in fables were: cats (allergic?), giraffe (who has his own special space), fox (sneaky), dolphin (helping people to water ski – going “Forward with Pride” – our school motto), sharks (sharp teeth, show off, brushes her teeth), panda (nice, look like bears, on TV; all black?), poodles (pink! – like to lick people), dog (that lets me go anywhere), kangaroo (with a joey inside her pouch – and a little bed), rhinoceros (go riding on it), dinosaurs (in a police uniform and a ballerina’s tutu), a lion (pride).

Week 4 – Circle time: shark has gills; lions go forward with their pride (of lions) and can run faster than a car; kangaroos and emus can’t walk backwards, always go forward (with pride); giraffe likes eating toast for breakfast; magical fox turned the poodle pink, turns into a dragon, always buys strawberry (pink) ice cream.

Week 5 – Investigate more of Aesop’s fables; Who was Aesop?; discuss morals in fables. Circle time: “Forward with pride” – our school motto. Makes us think of forward, four (number), 4 (numeral), fore (golf – “Look out in front!”), going for wood (forward), we would go for wood. Woodpeckers and beavers like wood. Fences, branches, sticks, treehouses, cubby houses, tables and chairs are made of wood. Fire needs wood. Trees need bark. Pride of lions. Things that make us proud: playing on my bike; Mum buying me stuff; parties; using my own money to buy a Slushy at 7-11; my doctor was proud of me at the hospital when I got stitches and he gave me a toy; winning at my DS game; my teacher is proud when I read well; winning lollies, stickers and Good Ones at school.

Week 6 – “Recent visitors” to the wiki include locales of: Soul-t’ukpyolsi, Hlavni Mesto Praha, and the exotic French location, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur. Circle time: Bringing the pink poodle and the shark (favourite characters) into the same fable as the giraffe. Note that a giraffe now also appears in the “Kangaroo and Emu” fable, according to artwork. Inspiration from French locale discovered from “Recent visitors”. Perhaps also need to investigate the art of feng shui? The colour red? Eiffel Tower?

See the four drafts of our, as yet, unfinished school motto fables at the new wiki page. If you’re finding this blog entry at some time in the future, the fables may not resemble their early versions by much.