Communication Tool

Class Pet! Ellie the Elephant (Homework Bag)

Rational:

0.6.3.3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

Our stuffed animal class pet, Ellie the Elephant, will get the opportunity to go home with 1 student per week. They get to go on the wonderful adventure! This tool allows for parent and student involvement. The parents get to help the student write out the class pets adventure while in their home. The students will be able to draw a picture and write at least one sentence about what they did together. This allows the parents to see the students progress as well as play a role in helping their child complete an assignment. Prior to sending the class pet home, a parent letter will be sent out with the explanation of the assignment as well as the dates their child will have the class pet. Another reason for this as the teacher, you get to see a small glimpse into the child’s life while encouraging family participation. This can be adapted for many different homework bags throughout the year. Along with the bag, comes a monthly/weekly parent newsletter. All students will receive this news letter, some will just not get it in this homework bag.

Materials:

• class pet
• String bag
• journal pages
• pencil
• coloring utensil
• parent letter
• schedule

Motivation:

Hello my friends! Now I know we have been learning about different jungle animals and how they do not live here in MN unless they are in a zoo. Except I forgot about our class pet!!! Our class pet is Ellie the Elephant. Lets meet him! (Teacher reads a letter from the class pet to the class explaining what it going to happen.) All of you will get the opportunity to take our very own Ellie home with you on an adventure! Ellie is so excited to meet your families, and I am excited to see all of the new adventures that Ellie gets to go on!

Description:

In a drawstring bag, there will be Ellie the Elephant, journal pages for the whole class, a pencil box filled with coloring utensils and pencils, and a parent letter describing how to help out their child with this assignment. One child a week will be given the bag and get the chance to bring it home. They get to bring Ellie with wherever they go. The child will then draw a picture and write at least one sentence on their favorite activity they did with Ellie. If appropriate, the parents can dictate what the child says. Ellie will need to be brought back by the Friday of that week so on Friday, they can share with the whole class their picture and what they did with Ellie. They can also take a picture with Ellie and bring it in to show the class as well. This works on the students writing skills as well as their oral speaking skills.

I got this idea from my Elementary Methods class with Sue Ellingson. We did a variation of this in our language arts class. I adapted it to make it fit my jungle theme and for the age of the students.