Mrs. Jenkins' Class Visit 2: What They Think, Feel, Say, and Do

The curricular focus of my second visit to Mrs. Jenkins class was on characters. More specifically it was on what characters think, feel, say, and do. To begin class we read the book "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon. This book is about a girl named Camilla who loves lima beans but she refuses to eat them because she simply wants to fit in. She wakes up one morning to discover that she is covered in stripes! Her condition only worsens and after the doctors fail to cure her she ends up covered in fungus, berries, crystals, feathers, and countless other things. Until she finally ends up morphing into the walls of her bedroom. She is finally cured when a little old lady comes over and gives her lima beans to eat. The story ends with Camilla proudly eating lima beans while sitting outside at school.

Not only did this book have great imagery that we used to explore different movement but it also allowed the students to think about and explore the motives behind the character Camilla. We talked about why she didn't want to eat lima beans, how she felt when she came to school covered in stripes, and why she no longer had a problem eating lima beans at the end. Though we explored different movement possibilities from the story, my favorite part of the lesson was something we did at the very beginning and then again at the very end. I divided the class in half and had one half be the dancers, and the other half be the watchers. When we did it the first time the watchers would close their eyes, and the dancers got to dance and move however they want. However, as soon as the watchers opened their eyes the dancers had to freeze. Each student had an opportunity to be both a dancer and a watcher. We connected this activity to Camilla and how though she loved lima beans, she wouldn't eat them because she wanted to fit in. When we did the activity again at the end of class, the dancer had to keep dancing even when the watchers opened their eyes. We connected this to how in the end Camilla decided that she didn't need to worry about fitting in and ate the lima beans simply because she wanted to. In the end this lesson not only focused on what character's think, feel, say, and do, but ended up turning into a lesson about how it is important to simply be yourself.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/A_Bad_Case_of_Stripes.jpg