It doesn’t get much better than this with the 5th & 6th graders:
As I got to the elementary school today, the teacher and a few kids were in the courtyard, planting some trees and vegetables. We all went into the classroom. I had been thinking of telling “Mikku and the Trees,” so it seemed very appropriate to do so.
We then reviewed the five Ps, and I had the class tell an impromptu story. We chose the elements. The characters were Jake, his father, and a magical horse named Bunny. The place was Rainbow Town. As the story progresses, I call on different students and they create the content one-by-one. Here is the final story.
The problem was that Jake got lost in the woods. He met up with Bunny and asked him to help Jake find his way home. Bunny said he had to give up something important in exchange for his help. Jake gives Bunny two marshmallows, and the sugar rush makes the horse run wildly, start to fly around and then poop out a rainbow. Bunny is exhausted from all that, and falls from the sky and breaks his leg. Jake eats two marshmallows he has saved, and the sugar rush makes him so strong that he can carry Bunny on his back and finds his way home with the light of the rainbow. He really wants to leave the forest now as the rainbow really smells bad.
When he returns home, the father wants to sell the horse, but Jake says, “No, he’s my horse and we will keep him.” They put Bunny in the barn and then sat by the fire as Jake told his father of his adventure in the woods…and they all live happily ever after!
Like I said, it doesn’t get much better than that.
©Mark Goldman 2012
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