Newspaper article about the clown we helped a couple of weeks ago. |
Our role on the wall for the giant - drawn by Tom. |
Dear Townspeople of Thistle Town,
I don't know why you are picking on me! Tanglebangled ringlepox!
I'm just a lonely old giant and nobody seems to want to be my friend. Sometimes the animals of the town come and see me and they seem to like me. They curl up in my cave and I sometimes give them nice food to eat. But no one else has ever visited me or invited me to do something with them.
What have I done to hurt you? I know you've all been talking about me and my tantrums. I can't help them can I? Don't you throw tantrums - you wagglepooping nurdlecrists?
I want to meet with you to talk about this. Keep those franglewhangled whippersnack Problem Solvers away from me! They just want to trap me or put me in a cage and take me away from my home.
How would you like that? I don't and I'm frightened.
From the GIANT
Letters from the giant arrived (in the envelopes we had self addressed earlier) |
Everyone reads their copy of letter from the giant - shared reading aloud. |
WRITING LETTERS BACK TO THE GIANT
Our next task was to write letters to the giant. In our discussions we decided we should write back to the giant and explain that we were sorry for frightening him with all our plans for trapping him and that now we understood what the problem was we would like to help. The children came up with lots of ideas for ways we could make friends with the giant and how the giant could help people in Thistle Town and be a friend to them. The children wrote letters and we edited them and published them and put them in envelopes addressed to the Giant on the Mountain. Here are some excerpts from some of the letters:
Dear Giant,
We aren't bad people we are sorry. We just want to be your friend. Would you want to have a party on the mountain? We would all come.
From Theo.
Dear Giant,
We are sorry we made plans to trap you. I know a little plan to get you some friends. You can have fish and chips with us on the hill.
From Lily.
Dear Giant,
We are so sorry for planning traps and stuff. Please forgive us. We want to be your friend. We'd like you to visit our home at the bottom of your hill. There is a town and we'll tell the people to be your friend. You could do slides for us with your arms or we could jump off your arms. It would be fun.
From Luke.
Dear Giant,
We are sorry that we came up with all the trapping ideas. We have come up with new ideas. Here they are. You could help the police help the firemen, or the fish-dumping police. We want to be your friend. We will take you to the fireworks.
From CJ.
Dear Giant,
We are sorry for trying to trap you. You are friendly and could help Thistle Town in lots of ways. Here are some things you could do: you could be a ladder for firemen, a catcher for robbers, and a net for fishermen I hope you can help the town.
From George.
Dear Giant,COLLECTIVE MAPPING
We want to make friends with you. Don't be angry at us. We are going to change our plans. We like you.
From Phoebe.
When we had finished our letters we decided we would invite the giant to a meeting in Thistle Town so we could give him our letters and tell him we wanted him to be his friend. We then needed to make a giant! We collectively drew a huge giant on to a long strip of paper - we all worked together to create a fabulous HUGE giant.
The Problem Solvers and the HUGE giant! |
THE PLAY OF THE PROBLEM SOLVERS COMES TO AN END
Today was our last day together as 'The Problem Solvers' To end our five week unit of work we made a porporoaki (a reflection circle). We all stood in a circle, facing outwards to start with. We thought of something we wanted to share about our work and when we were ready we quietly turned to facing inwards. When everyone had turned in we went around the circle and shared our thoughts. There were lots of favourite moments shared. Collective mapping and drawing, learning lots of songs, meeting the different characters (teacher in-role), travelling in planes and hot air balloons, making the moving lighthouses, and getting letters from the different characters were some of the favourite moments that were shared. In five weeks 'The Problem Sovers' have become a fantastic team of co-operative creative thinkers and have learnt to play together wonderfully with lots of learning along the way - well done team!