by Chad Dike, Teaching Artist at Widen Elementary School
Mr. Monster
Most of you out there in the blogosphere don’t know about my assistant teacher. He is an awesome facilitator and a really good friend to me and the students. His name is Mr. Monster. He has been teaching with me since October mostly in my Pre K and Kinder classes. That is until last month when he decided to make an appearance in my 4th grade class. Ever since that day my students have not been the same.
My 4th graders and I have been working on creating a performance piece about fighting:
- What it means to fight with someone
- How to deal with a fight, and
- How we feel about fighting in general.
At first they really just wanted to show people punching each other on stage, but we were working to get past that initial impulse. That was all until Mr. Monster came to visit. In his capable–well he doesn’t have hands but you know what I mean–these fight obsessed students have become new students.
So much so they decided to create their own monster puppets: Mr. Monster’s family, a pirate enemy, Super heroes and even their take on a couple of Muppets. When asked how these puppets would add to our performance about fighting, the answer was simple. “We will make a puppet show!” But how will that change our piece you ask? Good question. They are creating a piece about fighting with puppets specifically geared towards Kindergarteners.
How they have grown! The group that wanted to fight onstage now wants to send a message to other students in their community.
