In case I haven’t said it on this blog before, I used to be a Preschool Teacher. In my 5 years there I typically avoided coming up with lesson plans or coming up with projects. Allow me to brag here. This is one project I did lead.
The kids would draw a picture of a planet, they could make the planet look however they wanted. They had total freedom to do what they wanted with it. When they were done I called them over one at a time for them to describe their planet to me and give it a name. Again, they had total freedom to say whatever they wanted. I mean, I seem to remember one or two might have said they didn’t care to describe their planet at all so I guess they didn’t have total freedom.
I brought my computer to class that day, which you might be able to tell because some of them mention computers, so that I could note down everything they said and exactly how they said it. I didn’t want to just get the gist of what they imagined and then rewrite it myself. So, these descriptions they told me are direct quotes. A few descriptions have small footnotes by me and these are marked with an asterisk. The footnotes were included in the final products that were posted up on the walls outside class and later sent home.
Annie
Planet Mr. Josh
“Uh… Mr. Josh and me live in it. The planet has a head and it’s always so cold and it always has signs and it has glasses and there is a tv on the glasses and it has a nose and it has a shark and it has a jacket. And my family lives there. Um… we play Mr. Josh is an alien and Mrs. Cindy is an alien and everybody’s an alien and there are people-aliens and there’s so much computers nobody can write and it has a table on its head and it has…”
*She went on for a while, giggling and just saying “and it has this and it has that and it…”
Morgan
Planet peanut
“Its named that since my other name is peanut. People eat pancakes. people eat peanuts in their pancakes and stuff and all of their food they have peanuts in the food. Animals only eat peanuts I guess. All the houses are made out of peanuts. We throw peanut balls and play peanut ball games. A whole lot of people live there and my peanut family lives there.”
Harris
Planet X-treme
“Maybe I want a wolf on top of it and the wolf is goin’ to be maybe Harris. Another wolf is named sun and I live there. Me and the wolves walk around the planet and look at stuff like sun, animals, zebras and just that. That’s it.”
Margaret
Planet Allison, thats my moms name
“Hmmm… a flowers everyday, they grow. I live there. My best friend too and my other friend and you (Mr. Josh) live there cause you’re my best friend. Mr. Joshy you’re there and Mrs. Cindy is there and there’s like a bunch of people who live there. An ice cream shop is there next to my house. It has free ice cream. A popsicle shop too. And my neighbor is gonna be you and my other best friend and we have a treasure chest in my house that I keep in my room and… and a popcorn shop. You have crystaly rocks in your house and I’m done now.”
Sebastian
Pluto, actually Earth
*He points to places on the planet.
“I live there like right here and that’s earth. Well this will be the zebras cause the zebras are kind of white and that will be the ocean and this is the ocean and there’s kind of a little purple right there. I think that will be dirt. Oh, that will be dirt too and that red thing could be lava so that one and that one right there. My brother is Alex and my other brother is a little baby and his name is Zachary and he lives in Texas and my cousin lives in… I don’t know. He has a sister.”
Luke
Planet Texas
“I live there. I live there live and that’s a good part. It’s the best planet. There are lions, zebras, bears, and cheetahs. The meat eaters fight. My family lives there and there are no aliens. There’s nothing else I want to tell you about it.”
Juliana
Mr. Josh Planet
*At first Juliana names it Saturn but Annie comes up and tells her that she named her planet “Mr. Josh” so Juliana changes it to Mr. Josh planet.
“There are aliens there. I live there. Annie, Harper, and Mr. Josh and Harper lives there again and Annie lives there again and then a zero lives there again. There’s lambs there and that’s the only animal. We play in the backyard. It’s a pretty planet and it’s beautiful and that’s all. And there’s another Annie and another Mr. Josh and a Harper and another Harper and another Mr. Josh and another Annie and another glasses and another lights and another table and another…”
*This lasted a while and there were alot of Harpers and Annies
Selah
Planet Franken-eye
“It called that because it has a eye. In the eye is uh… is smushy. The planets pretty and there’s an animal there and it’s… the animal is uh… is rabbit robot and um… there’s a zero in the rabbit eye and there’s a pocket in the rabbit’s head. that’s it. Nobody else lives there. Its an “ickin spickin” robot. That means it’s pretty but it still lives on the planet by itself.”
Oliver
Planet Harris
“The Planet Harris has Oliver and Harris, Hamilton, and Annie. They live in the thing we do. Well we do fun is that we play Ninjago tickets. Wait think Boris lives on it too. Boris lives there too. And there’s cows, horses, and we live in a house and then and um… my… who’s my Mom and Dad are scissors. My Mom and Dad are scissors because my Mimi is paper. It has a toilet on the planet. That’s it.”
Boris
Sonic the Planet
“Sonic lives there with other friends with people and i live there and some bad guys always live here and that way they attack sonic and his friends and sonic always wins and sometimes sonic finds all the gems and he turns gold and that means he’s more powerful. And then there was someone destroying Christmas. It was the Grinch he was attacking and he stole all the presents ad destroying them and then sonic wins again. And then another bud guy showed up and then it was Dr. Robotnik and he had the robots and monsters and they…”
*Many stories about sonic beating bad guys followed. Sonic and friends fought many enemies including a bucket monster, aliens from space that made everything turn super weird, and monster robots with things on their feet. Finally at the end Sonic made new friends.
Brayden
Earth
“Its a different earth than our earth. There’s grass there. There’s a zoo that has like um a zebra one and um… some giraffes and normal animals and some ant eaters. That’s where i go for fun. I live there with some um… people are there, my family, Sebastian, Mrs. Cindy, Boris, and that’s all the people.”
Harper
Twilight sparkles crystal flower jewel
“Harper, me and my friend Harper. And my mom lives there dad lives there. Brother lives there. Both of my dogs live there Layla, Bexley. And my friends. We go to the zoo with normal animals and houses dinosaurs. Girl dinosaurs only. And cats and dogs they live there and they’re friends and their families are there. There are rabbits, queens and princesses, kings, princes, unicorns and horses. And there’s a learning station how to ride unicorns and horses. There’s cookies that are alive and jelly beans that are alive cause it’s gonna be Candyland. It’s gonna be Candyland twilight sparkle with suckers, lollipops, ice cream that’s alive and we don’t eat them we just make friends with them. The dogs and cats can talk. All the animals can talk. Walruses, zebras, yaks, turtle, horse, giraffe. It pretty with flowers.”
Jack
Coostar
“Um.. there’s sonic there. There’s a aliens there and there’s Mario and Batman and there’s lego guys. They have tackle cause one of them… the zombies are mean. It’s a happy planet. There’s a house on the planet and there’s fishies and there’s a computer on the planet and there’s cars and hair on the planet. I live on the planet with my family and there’s beds and lovies and there’s 10,000 dogs. There’s 10,000 rocks and 10,000 cars and there’s 1 body guy and 1 talking sun and there’s hats and books. I read the books and video games and numbers and heads and healthy food and candy, candy, candy and healthy food. There’s 10 seconds and everybody in the world lives there and there’s lego and there’s legoland.”
Gavin
Earth
“It’s our earth. Animals live there. Not alien animals but normal animals. There’s turtles, pies, zebras, snakes, Everybody lives there. We play video games.”
Hamilton
Milky Way
“So there was a little little Mr. Josh and then Hamilton came up and said there’s a flower and then the flower talked and then it said, “shoo” and then the planet come and splashed over the whole city and then Mr. Josh came back and say hello. That’s all.”
Riggs
Planet yawn
“I think it’s just an empty planet. There’s nothing there I think.”
The Mind of Joshypoo 