From Art to Story

As 1st graders worked on their Calder-like moving birds this week, I wanted a related story that I could read to them as they finished. Nothing came to mind, so I started thinking about making my sample bird into a story patterned a bit after Cindy Ward's, Cookie's Week and Eric Carle's, The Hungry Caterpillar.

At 7:00 Petey woke up. It was raining. What should he do?

In my version, the bird (named Petey after a parakeet I had when I was 6 years old) starts his day indoors doing various things around the house, but later notices the open door and you can imagine what happens next.

At 12:00, Petey noticed that the door was open. I wonder where Petey will go now?

My childhood parakeet actually did escape through an open door. We tried to lure him back by putting the cage with his partner in it out in the back yard and, surprisingly, an entirely new parakeet flew to the cage. She definitely wanted to stay, so we welcomed her in and called her Emma. She actually was smarter, tamer and cuter than the original!! True story!!!

Anyway, back to the art. I suggested that the kids use their new art bird as the main character for their own story. They could either take pictures, upload to a computer and write text or they could draw pictures and hand write their text. Backgrounds could be the actual photo background, or they could draw a background to fit their text.

Our Spring Break starts next week, so I thought this might be a fun activity to do with parents at home. I put a few sample pages in our hallway bulletin board space in hopes that some families would like the idea and give it a try:)

I know this is too small for you to read, but it gives you the idea.

I tried making a copy of 2 of my sample pages as a Google doc to see if you can access. We'll see if it works. Click HERE>