Merging of the Minds and Species

You can often find many of the children circling around a book in the mornings, especially if it involves animals of any kind!  

The children are teaching me everyday about various animals, whether it might be an unknown bug that wanders into our classroom or animals that come up in a class discussion.  One idea that has resurfaced a few times is this idea of mutation, from Godzilla to the three headed shark.  I invited the children to create a new species that combined at least two different animals.    

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When the children shared their new species of animals during a class meeting, I could feel their excitement and joy continue to grow.  When I feel this kind of energy, that is when we start to dive deeper into their ideas.  So that is what we did... dove into the unknown!  They all expressed that they wanted to draw another new species.  In order for them to grow from this past experience, I invited two children up at a time.  They each had to think of an animal on their own and give me a thumbs up when they had thought of one.  I counted to three and each child had to call out their animal.  Together, the pair were then invited to mesh their two animals into one species.

After each group was satisfied with their new species, I invited each dynamic duo to create a new name for their animal and write how that new species came to be.  The stories ranged from one animal eating another animal and not fully digesting it to the influences of mad scientists!  The children were so creative in their ideas!

I could feel the energy still at the same heightened level about this idea.  During a class meeting, I invited them to think of ways to represent their new species outside of  paper and a black felt tip pen.  What mediums could they use to dive deeper into their new creation?  Their list included:
-magna tiles
-costumes
-cardboard
-shading the pictures
-origami
-shadow puppets
-colored pencils, Sharpies, pastels, crayons
-copy the picture and make it 3-D
-blocks
-3-D printer

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Below are their presentations of their new species.  I am still in the middle of documenting this from Friday.  But, here is a sneak peak!  One child was out this day and will be invited to work on hers some more next week.  I cannot wait to see where the children take their next adventure in this learning!