| It's great fun working with one grade, and the fourth grade at Stony Brook School was a wonderful grade with which to work. Take a look at these stories. First, here's one from the assembly: |
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The four ingredients: an animal trainer in a tree who wants socks up against a baker
The story: I'm not sure I like our main character. He's so hungry for these special cookies -- shaped like socks and each one is hand decorated by the baker -- that he has chased her up a tree! And now, he's making his trained attack-squirrels go after the cookies for her.
I guess she was baking up the wrong tree!
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And now, I present the stories from the workshops:
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A cat as a lion tamer? Of course! He can speak the lion's language. Here, he keeps the lion's doing tricks by telling them jokes. When he tries to run off to find himself a family, the lions won't let him go.
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After I wrote the title, I thought of a better one: Roaring with Laughter!
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Here's one chubby bunny. Maybe that's why his name is Chubby Bunny. He lives in a park in a city and is tired of the other rabbits making fun of him.
So, he sets off across the road into an alley, where he finds a hole in a wall in which to live. Unfortunately, the two rabbits who enjoy making fun of him follow him to continue the mocking. When a mean dog shows up too, he has a tough choice to make!
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I think Chubby will step in to save his friends, don't you?
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You may wonder what this thing is that's hanging off the back of our main character's head on the right. We brainstormed lots of ideas before thinking that he was a very confident real-estate agent who is trying to sell a mansion that everyone thinks is haunted!
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In fact, the house isn't haunted. All the creaks and groans and, in this case, ghostly sounds are being made by another real-estate agent who wants to win the house-selling contest instead of our hero!
I liked trying to get the final drawing of the guy capture the look and self-confidence of the guy in the sketch. By the way, the kid who drew him said he thought it was an 80's guy!
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After telling my duck joke in hundreds of schools, a student named Thomas surprised me in the hall by being the first kid to actually offer me grapes! It made me laugh. So, thanks for the grapes. They were delicious.
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What a fun day! And Stony Brook fourth graders, if you like these drawings, remember, they come from your ideas.
You really do have great imaginations! I hope you'll keep using them by putting them down on paper and sharing them with others.
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with Bruce Van Patter
