Puffins and Projects

 This is a poem (Oh, There Once Was a Puffin by Florence Jaques) that I memorized a long, long time ago. It came up on our vacation, when we went on a puffin adventure boat. We got to go out to a puffin island and see puffins! Because we were going to do that, I recited this poem a couple of times, just because I'm goofy, I guess. Joy listened to it and laughed at the puffins eating pancakes (one of her favorite foods). Then she asked if I would teach her the poem. I NEVER turn down a chance to have her learn anything, so I said, "Sure!"

Within a couple of days, she had memorized the poem and was reciting it endlessly. I knew the day would come when I would use the poem for instruction. I made a copy (left) of the poem and had Joy read it for school. Then we found the rhyming patterns (colored highlighting and boxes). We also examined the rhythms of the stanzas.

Then last week Joy blurted out, "I want to make a movie!" In discussing the movie, I suggested that she make a movie of the puffin poem, and she loved the idea. So we began making puppets. We found pictures on the internet. I did most of the cutting on the puffin because Joy was not feeling brave enough to tackle it.

She did most of the cutting on the fishes, though! I drew the shape on the first two, but then she designed them herself.

 Of course, we were reading about puffins from the internet (I even got a chance to discuss which sources were more credible, comparing National Geographic with Wikipedia!) and from library books. Joy wrote about puffins in her "letters" to Mom and Dad. She writes these spontaneously all the time. The one on the right says, "I like puffins. They are fun! From Luv Joy"

We tie-dyed fabric for backdrops, which turned out fabulously! Then we put together our "stage" from a side-turned card table and our backdrops. We built an island with a box and markers.

We videotaped five "takes" and used flipshare to edit the best of each of the six stanzas together. It turned out GREAT!

Joy had a super time doing all this, and she learned so many things! She memorized, recited with expression, planned and created art, researched puffins online and in books, and wrote about the puffins and the process. Stealth Kindergarten at its best!