Minn and Jake Craft Lesson

Wong, Janet. Minn and Jake. New York: Farrar, 2003.

Discussion:


Since friendship is one of the main themes of this book, I decided to take the part about friendship being a choice (pg 7) and make it into a writing and art activity. This activity would be great for 4th and 5th graders. Some of the examples page 7 gives is that one can choose a friend because they live on the same street, like the same games, need to borrow a pen, and just because someone smiles at you.


Lesson:


The assignment for my students is to write a short story on how they choose friends. I would tell them there should be at least three or four ways, and that relying on how they have chosen the friends they have today as examples. I would give them several options for writing this short story. They can have just a couple sentences with illustrations to go with it. They can use construction paper or just regular lined paper. They could even use a poster board and make sections for the different ways and make it look like a storyboard. I would assign it on a Monday and let them start brainstorming in class. However, I would make the rest of it homework and give them at least a week to finish it. When they bring them in class to turn in, I would let whomever wants to present their story do so to the class. However, I would not make that part manditory.