The God of Pretzels

The God of Pretzels by Jagna

He had the best pretzel costume in the whole world, but couldn't take it off. He went to the other Gods and told them he thought he could be a God. That is what made him the God of Pretzels. His power is that he can make pretzel shaped pimples appear on anyone's face. He can also change pretzels into pimples, so if you pack a pretzel for lunch and you make him angry, he can magically turn it into a giant pimple. A giant pimple that will eat you.
He can even change the world into a giant pretzel.
I feel that the world is changing into a giant pretzel...

Greek Gods/Goddesses

After reading some Greek Myths about different Gods, we decided to make our own Gods/Goddesses. It's not not not a bad idea to create a profile for each new God or Goddess. After researching some profiles of Greek Gods online, we created our own through Scratch. - Jagoda

Myths by Jagoda

The Myth About There No Longer Being Any More Unicorns.

Once upon a time there was a small unicorn country. In this country there were unicorns, of course. They were happy here. But one day, people from other countries didn't like the unicorns to have their country. They said that countries were only for people. They decided to take over the country. 

The unicorns had their own magical powers. They turned the people into unicorns. The rest of the people also had magic powers. So, they turned all of the unicorns into people because they were confused as to which ones were people and which ones were unicorns. That is why there are no longer unicorns in this world. They have all been turned into people. The End. 

Emotion: Pictures, Music and Poems

Today I took photos of things around the playroom that represent different emotions to me. I then used my cello to show how I think these emotions would sound  through music. After, I wrote some poems about those emotions. The poetic pattern I followed was "a,b,a,b,c". - Jagoda
Below are the images and poems pieced together:

                                                                         ANGER

I'm really now annoyed

This page makes me mad

I hope it will soon be destroyed

This page is super bad

It's like the cello sliding off my knee

HAPPINESS

Puppies are fun

Puppies are cool

Yellow like the sun

They do not have to go to school

It's not fair!!!

BOREDOM

Maps are dull

Like history and geography

and my stupid doll

as well as my British tea

This poem puts me to sleep

Emotions

Over the weekend the girls and I all went to the same Pantomime. It was an interpretation of a documentary called "Mikrokosmos", about the life cycle of different insects and birds, but also of the tale "Thumbalina". It was a really interesting experience, and very kid friendly. Jagna's favourite part had to do with frogs which were jumping on bouncy balls. Jagoda's favourite part was the image of hands in the shape of a butterfly portrayed on a screen. My favourite was the butterfly dance, it was enchanting and the music was beautiful.

The play got me thinking about how ideas and stories can be conveyed without words, how emotions can be understood through actions and images. This gave me the idea for todays topic of emotions with the girls.
Together we thought of different images, words and actions that we think of when focusing on a specific emotion. We made a lot of different mind maps, a few in verbal discussions while jumping on the trampoline, and others on paper. Below is what we happened to write down:

Happiness: "different things make different people happy" - Jagna
-money- -pets- -toys- -a plant growing in a garden- -ice-cream- -yellow- -sunshine- - happy face- -flowers- -pastel colours-

- Actions that people do for others can cause happiness.
- The same situation could make one person happy and another sad (like pranks).

What makes you happy?
Jagna= bouncy balls, kids day, reading, movies, pets, decorated eggs, giving to others.
Jagoda= jumping on the trampoline, family and friends
Leah= sparkles and glitter, christmas lights, summertime, coffee, people who make me laugh.

Can you be happy all the time?
"Sometimes I am happy all the time" - Jagna
"If I was allowed to jump on the trampoline all the time without my toes freezing" Jagoda

Hate: -fighting--avocado--melted chocolate--the colour brown--anger--red--negativity-

Love: -hearts--pink--giving--selfless--goodness--friendship--kisses--teddy bears--cuddles--family

Proud: -playing the cello--playing the violin--knowing english--lions

Confusion: -tornado--gray--beige-head towel--question marks

Scared: -hide--danger--ghosts--darkness--eyes in the dark

**
Another possible activity inspired by emotions is for each person to pick an emotion and either draw pictures/paint/make a collage using images and words that describe or relate to the chosen emotion without using the actual word. **

Link to the pantomime: http://www.pantomima.wroc.pl/mikrokosmos/

Discussion Topics

                Working with two girls on creative reading and writing as ESL has been a lot of fun so far. Sometimes, though, it is good to just sit down and have interesting conversations without having to worry about writing everything down or turning everything into a tangible piece of work.

               Yesterday the girls father was showing a Nirvana video which sparked the youngest girl, Yagna's, interest in the topic of Kurt Cobain's death. I was happily surprised that A) she knew who Nirvana was, and B) that she knew all about his death. It lead to some interesting questions and conversations. 

Here is a jot note version of what was brought up and discussed if anyone is looking for some discussion topics or ideas :)

Kurt Cobain

- "Why would Kurt Cobain kill himself?" - disappointed in life, too many cruel people in the world, too much inequality in the world. 

           - Why would anyone kill themself? - 

            -Why do people who are bad seem to have so much power? GMO's,

 technology killing the environment. 

-"Why is the environment important?" and why do so many people with power ignore or do not understand the importance of our environment? (GREED!)

Yagna says "life would be better without cars and other technological stuff "

Birthdays

- Best birthday - what made it the best? Was is the year? The people? The events? The food? The gifts?

What made Yagna's 7th birthday the best was the good company, the location being inside a giant indoor play park, delicious cake shaped like a violin, and a sleep over.

- Why do some people not like birthdays? - age, money issues, some people don't like being the centre of attention

- Age is just a number. "Sometimes I am two, sometimes I am 9" - Yagna 

Verbal Stories

At the last part of our time together yesterday, Yagna and I turned off the lights and sat in the playroom in the dark and told scary stories. It was a lot of fun!

Here is one of the videos that was shown (two men playing Nirvana on the cello!)
It is very cool, check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gvEpa8SyVE

Pick an Object and GO!

A really good creative writing exercise, that is easy but fun, is to pick a random object in the room and write a short story, song, or poem about it. It can be any object, something as silly as a pencil or a book, or even something adventurous like a picture where you can make up a story to the image.

I asked Jagna to pick an object, any object, in the room and she chose a garbage bin. Then i told her to start creating a story about this garbage bin, making it a character. This is the final product:

The Life of a Garbage Bin By: Jagna

Once the garbage bin was VERY hungry. So, he said „hello” but then he realized he could not talk.

Then he saw a girl with a whole stack of rubbish. She put it all in the garbage bin. „Yum yum” thought the garbage bin because he couldn’t talk.

Everything ends up in the garbage.

Then he saw another girl with even more garbage. So, he ate it. Soon he was all full. Then he saw a girl that opened him and took all the garabge out, leaving him hungry again.

Soon, the garbage bin was SO hungry, but nobody came with garbage. Just one piece of paper that he chomped on quickly. But, to not be hungry, he just continued to chew it. He didn’t really know why he was doing it, but he started to chew it like a piece of chewing gum.

Soon, he chewed it all. Then, he saw something like the best thing ever. It was a big truck. There was so much garbage in it. The bin was tossed in with all the garbage. He started to quickly chomp on all the garbage he saw. He chomped it as quickly as a mouse goes to its hole.

He couldn’t stop eating, it was just loading into his mouth. So he kept on eating, but slower and slower.

Soon he ate the whole truck of rubbish. Then the truck went to a really fun place and put the bin into a special something. He doesn’t quite know what it is. But he ate more rubbish that was going with him.

Soon, there was only one thing: the bin.

Then, he went to the hottest place ever, and from the hotness, died.

Everyone saw it. So, they wrote a book about it.

Then, the bin had new life. He wasn’t a bin anymore, he was A HUMAN! He didn’t know why, but yeah, he was human. He was really small, but years later he is now reading the story about the same bin and realizes „oh, that was me!”