I love to tell a good story. Even more, I love to have kids help me to make one up. Today, I was in the right place, because Highland Elementary School is the perfect place to make up stories. These kids love to create!
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This assembly story was about a monkey trying to get a "Tofu Dog" and how his snaky sidekick tried to save him from it. |
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| And this funny tale is about a pig out to get a picture of himself doing something dangerous to prove that he's brave. |
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| And though there were eight great doodles that came out of our assemblies, here's my favorite: |
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I totally loved how this student made a ghost, but added the chicken flavor. The one on the right is my take on the same doodle shape. Poor puppy! |
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| One Chicken Ghost |
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One Chicken Pup |
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Kindergartners are storytellers, too!
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One of the highlights of any school is the time I spend with the youngest students. They are so eager to send an animal on an adventure! Their stories are often very simple and full of nice touches. |
| Like this one: two dogs camp in the woods and see a bear carrying what they think is treasure into his cave. They sneak in and take it, but find in the light outside that the treasure is a bee-hive! They toss it back, but the bear thinks they've invented a new game! |
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I didn't leave this fine school until late into the evening, but when I left I was filled with the pleasure that comes from being with kids who truly love to use their imaginations. Thanks for a great day, guys!
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And remember, if you use your ideas -- put them down and share them -- you will always be creative.
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Here's what teachers at Highland wrote about my time at their school:
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about the assembly: |
| I enjoyed your enthusiasm for writing and drawing. You understand how to reach kids through humor. I believe the kids were excited about their creativity... Thanks for a great day! |
| about the workshop: |
| The children were very enthusiastic about the workshop and were anxious to try some new ideas in the writing workshop. |
Read reviews from other schools. |
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| Recess for the Brain! |
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This was the first school in which I started to use that description for my workshops. These sessions really are fun! Here are some stories from them:
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| The wild idea of the day goes to the starting thought for this story: what if there was a girl who got paid to lose dogs when she walked them? And what if she later realized she wanted one of the dogs she lost? |
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| In this story, we have a stuck-up rooster who thinks he's great at protecting eggs, so he enters an Egg-Protecting Contest. The fox, however slips him a peeled potato which our not-so-swift rooster thinks is an egg! |
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| Poor little dragon! The Wheel of Fiction gave us another contest, so we put this little guy into the Dragon Olympics. He's trying to wrestle a knight statue, but he's not very good. We had fun thinking of other events -- I loved the "Ice-Melting Event." Great idea! |
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| And finally, in this tale our cowboy hero is searching in a ghost town for the rumored Fountain of Youth. We had trouble thinking of what to do with the story after that great start. I later thought that the bad-guy should be Billy the Kid! He's laid a trap for our hero! |
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| And special thanks to Jacob who brought me this cool drawing of his idea for a robot dog. I love all the stuff inside. This is one major mutt! Great imagination, Jacob! |
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with Bruce Van Patter
