The Straw Eating Dragon

Mornings in Kinderland follow a pretty consistent routine. The children arrive, answer the question of the day, we sing a song or two, figure out the date and then figure out how many days we've been in school so far using our place value chart and our red straws.

Until the Straw Eating Dragon decided to make an appearance.

One morning we had been counting out our red straws like we always do when we realized we were missing a straw. I was baffled. "What happened to the straw?" 

One child jumped up and shouted confidently "It was a dragon!" 

I looked down and the straw lay by my feet. "He must have dropped it" I replied mysteriously.

I asked the children what they knew about Straw Eating Dragons. Every single child at the carpet took a turn to fill me in on the creature. By the end we had figured out that they can camouflage and that they are particularly fond of the colour red. 

One child was concerned because the leggings that she was wearing that day were red. We told her that we would keep an eye out for him.

I suggested to the children that we should put up some signs to let people know that the dragon was around. The next day, our ECE student Jenna brought in some posters for the children to fill out and put up. The children spent writing workshop that day drawing pictures and writing warnings on their posters.

Jenna also brought in some supplies to make a dragon trap. The children participated in creating the trap as a team. Part of Jenna's experience as a student in our classroom is to provide creative activities based on the interests of the children that both engage the them and help them to further develop important skills. 

The children used boxes, string and tape to create the trap. The collaborate amongst each other to come up with the design.

Group projects encourage further developing social skills like turn-taking, negotiating and sharing ideas. 

A material as simple as tape will not only allow children to create some seriously complex creations, but it will also encourage them to perfect fine motor skills such as scissor cutting.

Sealing up the holes so the Straw Eating Dragon won't escape.

Finally it was time to test it out. Children from both our class and Shelley's class gathered in the hallway to witness the magic.

Some of the engineers marvelling at their masterpiece. 

The children got to take turns testing out the trap to make sure that it would work when we needed it to.

The Straw Eating Dragon may seem like just a silly made up idea but to the children it was something much more. The fact that it was an imaginary creature allowed the children rather than the teachers to be the experts and allowed for some very creative thinking. When one child's idea conflicted with another child's idea the children simply followed along to sustain the excitement. They did not have to worry about being right or wrong which encouraged the shyer children to feel confident enough to participate.  

Unplanned projects based one spontaneous interests like this one engage the children and encourage development in each of the developmental domains. When what is being taught is relevant to the children they gain more from the learning experiences. Whilst the Straw Eating Dragon visited our classroom, the children participated in activities that helped improve their handwriting, fine-motor abilities, creative thinking, negotiating, turn-taking and teamwork. 

Interests of young children change all the time and teaching just based on individual or group interests can be a tough thing to do. But every once in a while it is amazing to see what happens when you follow a child's lead.