Thursday, October 6, 2011

Creative Writing and the Attack of the Angry Birds

We read the book 'We are all alike, We are all different'. I chose this book because it is written and illustrated by a kindergarten class. I wanted to give the children a concrete example of young writers. I've read this book In class with preschoolers, prek's and they honestly seem to enjoy it more than the kindergarten class. It was a tad bit below their level. But the overall point was conveyed and the nice thing about the book is the photograph in the back of the actual kindergarten authors. I felt like the children's favorite part of the entire book was looking at that photograph. They knew they were just like them and it was inspiring that they had written a real book. We discussed what makes us different and what makes us the same. We then began to write and draw in our journals a little about ourselves. Most of the k's chose to write about their favorite thing. There was entries such as "my favorite thing to do is hug my mom" and "my favorite thing to do is play with my bunny". And of course, "my favorite thing to do is play angry birds". Now, let me explain I had my short lived obsession with angry birds, I get it. It's a fun game, and I'm not really on the same page as some co-teachers that believe it's a violent game and encourage the children to talk about 'happy birds'(I can honestly say most of these teachers that are adamantly against this game have never played it or watched it being played). I on the other hand can see some value in the game (as far as iPhone or computer games go). There is strategy and problem solving involved blah blah blah. Here's where the angry birds DO actually bother me. I have a small group of K boys that ONLY want to write about angry birds. And by write I mean draw countless angry birds for 45 mins then in the last five mins begrudgingly write, "my favorite thing is angry birds". I'm thinking my only defense is to strategically place the 'angry bird' boys throughout the room away from each other so the other K writers can spark up other interests in them. I guess I should go play Angry Birds Rio to come up with the most efficient and strategic placement of these angry bird lovers :-)

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