THE MONSTER EXCHANGE
For a couple of years, the 4th and 5th grade GT Connections classes from Cooley Elementary and Cielo Vista Elementary at EPISD have been conducting a monster exchange in October. The goal of the project is to establish productive collaborations between the two classes, and expanding the learning community of each students. Additionally, the project is an excellent, engaging writing project that focuses on proper use of descriptive language as well as the ability to follow procedural texts. And, most importantly, it is lots and lots of FUN!!!
THE INVITATIONS
The first step, of course, is to team up with a teacher at another campus that is interested in setting up collaborations. This teacher does not have to be a technology expert, but must be willing to take chances. Every campus at EPISD has a person that was trained on use of the video conferencing cart (VCS), and will be willing to help you with any technical aspects.
The project can begin with invitations from the classes to one another... take a look
The project can begin with invitations from the classes to one another... take a look
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The Materials
The basic materials for this project can vary, but we will list the ones we use below:
- Butcher paper
- Pencils
- Color pencils, crayons, markers, water colors and paints
- Yard sticks
- Notebook paper to describe creature.
- Video conferencing equipment
- Laptop with Skype or other conferencing material (in no video cart is available)
- Camera, for documenting project
THE PROCEDURE
Once materials have been gathered, the fun can begin!
- Assign students to random groups, and generate ideas for creatures. Make sure they use original ideas (i.e., no drawing's of the Universal Pictures Frankenstein monster).
- Students can sketch out their ideas before drawing these.
- Students will draw life size creatures on butcher paper, and color these using whatever materials are available.
- Each creature should be given a name, and described IN DETAIL on a piece of notebook paper.
- Make sure students understand that the other team will be drawing the monster from the detail, so they have to be as clear and specific as possible in their description.
- Transcribe descriptions onto an e-mail or as a Word attachment. Send these to the teacher at partner campus.
- When the descriptions are received from partner class, have students work with their same groups to create the creatures on butcher paper as well.
- Make sure that you have checked out the VCS equipment for the day of the big reveal, and that you have the room set up for the conference. Give yourself 2 to 4 weeks to get monsters drawn.
The BIG REVEAL
YES! The day of the reveal has arrived. Give yourself at least 45 minutes for the presentation of creatures and the follow-up discussion. Begin with an introduction of the talented artists in both classes, then set up a rotation for the presentation. It usually works better if one group shows their monsters, then asks the corresponding group on the other group to show their interpretations. The other campus then does the same, and this goes forth until everyone has presented both monsters (their original and the one created from the verbal description).
The discussion
End the projects with a lively discussion of the activity. Make students come up with a set of questions directed at the other campus. Encourage the discussion questions to be open ended, so that instead of asking, "Did you enjoy the project?" they may ask, "Describe what you enjoyed best from the project?" Be a facilitator, but allow the students to take control of the discussion. In the end, have students generate ideas for future presentation.
vARIATIONS
Aside from monster exchanges, there are countless other variations on this type of project. Instead of creatures, students can exchange drawing of actual historical figures or characters from novels. For example, on Thanksgiving, students can create turkeys from historical characters (e.g. "Turkeyham Lincoln," a turkey that looks like Abraham Lincoln) and describe these to the other class, without giving away who the character is. Try your on take on this project, and share your ideas with others!
sample product
Below is a sample of last year's monster exchange between our schools. It contains the descriptions of the monsters that were actually written by the students, and pictures comparing the two. Look through the wonderful, imaginative creatures that the students created!