Sweetland: Part II

2 February 2012

The saga with our imaginary English town, Sweetland, continued today.

At the end of last class, I had each student write a description of their character--what the person was like, where he/she lives, what he or she does, etc. I was hoping that this would help them "get to know" their character so that they could better assume the role later.

Here are two examples:

One of the girls was a witch. She told us that the witch is green, and she's got a black cat. She also has a broom that she flies at night. She lives in the desert of desserts. She's mean and does bad things.

Another student was a pilot. He flies a sweet airplane. He lives in Healthy House with his sweet bird. He's clever (yes, my kids know the word clever!) and (a little) crazy. He doesn't like superheroes. And my favorite... He's 45 years old. Ancient by kid standards.

After we wrote our descriptions, we had to make up some rules for Sweetland. There were definitely some weird ones. But here are a couple examples:

• Sweetlanders can't throw wrappers on the ground. 
• Sweetlanders can't enter the houses of other people. 
• The witch can enter the houses. (She's the exception to the rule.)
• It's possible to eat the gingerbread houses. (I asked the kids about this one a couple times just to make sure this was what they wanted.)
• Sweetlanders give the pilot 3 sweets every day. 

Next week, my kids will actually start the role play. I'm going to start by having them introduce themselves and give them the opportunity to ask each other questions. Then, a mystery will evolve. One of them will have eaten the Apple Palace and the Gingerbread Houses, and we'll have to figure out who did it!

Picture of the Day: 

Alhambra in Granada, Spain