Sorry for the delay, everybody, but I wanted to get a little Thanksgiving present ready for you. I downloaded the blogs from the first trimester and compiled them into one document. Unfortunately, because I went from inserting pictures to inserting a gallery, halfway through the blogs stop having pictures. 🙁 I plan on going through to change it so they display correctly, but that will be by the end of the year. I’m currently thinking about printing out the blog at the end of the year, so don’t print it out at home right now and use up a gallon of ink! Have a great Thanksgiving! Now onto our regularly scheduled blog!
Friday was a great way to wrap up our first trimester together! We finished up our books on the BFG and watched the movie to see which we preferred. Timo asked right away if we were voting like last time, which started a discussion on which they would likely prefer. The class drew the covers for their books to represent an image they really liked from the book. Anja drew Sophie, as “she’s my favorite, she’s cute like me.” Yianni drew the BFG because the book was all about him, after all. Teddy drew the jars of dreams, which was an image that really stuck with him. Gia drew the mean giants, as she thought about them a lot. Timo laughed as he drew a snozzcumber, and Tove drew Sophie hiding in the snozzcumber. Bisola loved seeing Sophie being brave, so she drew Sophie with the pin she used to fight the mean giant. It was great seeing what images stuck with the class and hearing them talk about why the images mattered to them.
While we watched the movie, I heard a lot of different and more nuanced dialogue among the class. For example, Rebecca realized the girl must be Sophie, even though she looked different, since she was watching out the window. Gia wasn’t initially sure, as the girl didn’t see the BFG at first, and Sophie saw the BFG in the story. Niki agreed that it was the BFG, as she recognized the dream trumpet he had. Jerome connected snozzcumbers with ‘snot’ after he saw how gooey the snozzcumbers were in the story. Paolo was more critical as he watched the story and said “I would have let her go if I was the BFG, it’s rude to keep her if she wants to go.” Tove realized one section was a dream sequence, something that didn’t occur in the book before I did actually, which was a delight. We also had some non-story side conversations, which were interesting. Paolo realized that “Jerome’s pupils are bigger right now, it must be because it is dark in here.” Tove also remembered looking through the colored lenses, and wanted to watch part of the movie through the colored magnetiles to see how it compared.
After the movie, we had a discussion about which version they preferred. Niki compared the dreams in the book and the movie, and talked about how the book had the President (Mr. Chris localized the book to work in some civics knowledge) while the movie had the Queen of England. Bisola explained that the giants in the movie seemed a lot scarier. Jerome thought the book seemed shorter, which was an interesting discussion. Anja pointed out how different Sophie looked than she expected, while Yianni appreciated all the little details that were the same, like the BFG bumping his head on the ceiling. After we voted, Tove pointed out I was the only one that liked the book better, although Jerome said it was tough to pick. I asked the class why and Rebecca started laughing. “The dogs farted across the floor!” In her defense, once that happened, I pretty much gave up on anyone liking the book better. We certainly had a blast watching the movie and talking together.
I want to shout out to those students that were able to do the Pledge this week; you all did a great job and I hope we can have the rest of you lead it the next time. Also, a happy upcoming birthday to Anja, we all hope you have a great birthday! One final note, we are singing “Happy Xmas” by John Lennon for the winter program. We will also be talking about our hopes for the new year and highlights from the past year, so if you would like to start practicing and having those conversations, that would be great. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
