Doughnuts that make me go nuts!!

So many doughnuts with a lot of personality! The kids rocked at constructing, embellishing, and creating personalities for their doughnut friends.

My group and I presented a lesson for the fun and playful book, Arnie The Doughnut by Laurie Keller. The lesson was geared for a 1st grade class Brewster Elementary.

The students read the book and learned about Arnie who is bought from a little bakery and is trying to convince his purchaser not to eat him! And there are a ton of different doughnuts at the bakery who are Arnie's friends.

So the students created their own doughnut friend and gave them a name and talked about what they like to do.

First each student received a 6 x 6 piece of white paper (dough) and drew their desired doughnut shape.

Nest the students used marbles to frost (paint) the doughnut and then they used different shapes of colored construction paper to decorate their doughnut friend. And then we talked about expression and how different faces tell us how a person must feel. Then the students created an expression for their doughnut friend. And finally the students gave their doughnut friend a name.

Then once their doughnuts were baked (dried) they were cut out and turned into puppets! So now the students can play with their new doughnut puppet to tell the story of Arnie the Doughnut or their own story.

The doughnut friends were then displayed in the library. The author of Arnie The Doughnut is coming to Brewster to read the book to the kids! And she will be able to see the student's wonderful display of Arnie's Friends. 

I was a little apprehensive about this lesson because I didn't know how the results were going to turn out. There was a lot of last minute changes. I mean at THE last minute sometimes during the actual lesson. I guess this is the life of a teacher. You must think on your toes and adjust to your students to make sure that everything is on track and that you are reaching your goal of what you want the students to learn from the lesson. The students did a fantastic job imagining up some amazing friends for Arnie. I am blown away at how the students responded to the project. I hope to post some close ups of the student's doughnut friends. They are so fun and very original!