Bottle Buddies

Every year, Shawnee Mission has an American Hero assembly. Students are asked to research and write an essay about their American Hero.  This year, I have a very creative class. They made these cute bottle buddies. They turned out GREAT! Every time I look at them, I see something I didn't notice before.

They are made out of a 2 Liter bottle and a Styrofoam ball for a head. They also make an egg shaped ball, that makes it look a little more realistic.  The bottle needs to be filled with sand, rocks, or water so that it doesn't get knocked over easily.

Everybody's got to have a hero... Part 1

In 5th grade we do a large hero project.  This year to get the kids thinking about heroes and to avoid having 13 MLK and 10 Amelia Earhart's, we started talking about traits of a hero.  First we started off by defining a hero and an idol. 

I gave examples of heroes and asked the kids to come up with some people that they idol. 

Next, we did think-pair-share coming up with a list of qualities that we would want heroes to have.  I had each child share 1 trait, and I wrote it on the board. 

Then we talked about what we would want our heroes to have. As a teacher, I might want to have a hero who is compassionate, a leader, successful, smart, dependable, thoughtful, inventive, and kind.  But as an athlete, I might want someone who is strong, brave, committed, a dare devil, adventurous, and trustworthy.  So I had them pick 10 that they would want their hero to have. They wrote it in this graphic organizer.
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The next day, I had my students define 10 of these words. Then as a class we discussed people who had these characteristics.  It was a great discussion, and the kids were all willing to share!

Next up, picking the hero!