Bailanysh

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Monster For Hire – A Terrifyingly Fun New Project from Grade 3

Image Source: Monster For Hire – The monster ’The Beast’

14th February 2023

Mirzokhid Ganiev

The hard work of yesteryear is now behind us with the new Monster For Hire initiative from the Primary Year Program (PYP) students! Need help moving? In programming? These monsters have you covered! The delighted and enthusiastic students of our school were presenting their creations, imagination, skill, and strengths in the recent fair created and hosted by grade 3, where ‘Year 3’ persuaded and engaged with other students to sell their monster’s service. The event took place last Friday – the 10th of February – in the 9th period. The students were able to present their respective monsters, and try to convince a large variety of people to ’purchase’ a service (from cooking to security) from their monster! Luckily you, the audience, had a chance to participate too by voting on your chosen monster, one from each class.

The different elements of the monsters:

The creation

Students, unfortunately, did not have the freedom to include and exclude what they wanted for their monsters. By playing a game, which included rolling dice, picking a random number, and other actions of random probability, each student was given certain characteristics their monster had! From how many eyes to what they could be wearing, the monsters were randomized. However, this gave many students a chance to learn to express their creativity within an imposed limit. Expanding their critical thinking, and allowing them to foster an idea through a provided outline. As seen with our little monster ’Pradik’ on the left, a unique and creative creation by Zhan from Grade 3 Blue.

The presentation

The students were able to present their monster’s abilities and characteristics on their service board. The board included the name of their monster, their abilities, and what services they can provide. It also had small and funny snippets of the monster’s personality, likes, and dislikes. Furthermore, outside the central personality sheet, there were small paper cards with further drawings of their monsters in different environments, and why their monster is the best. It was a large and detailed work that outlined all the needed information for you to buy a monster’s service. Here is a wonderful board by Marsel, and her monster ’Robert.’

An interactive and an additional game some of the students had: Map Adventures

Students of Grade 3 Yellow had a little twist on their Monster For Hire with a Map Adventure. The game was an interactive way to help students develop their communication skills and also bring in the audience to a more physical interaction with the students and their monsters. The games consisted of a map, which differed for each student, where the student asked a roaming audience to find a certain element/place using coordinates. The coordinates, as seen on the sides of the above image, were numbered and lettered, and the audience had to locate it by projecting the location. As an example, the yellow house in the above example would have a coordinate of F7.

Struggles and Achievements

Speaking to the teachers of both classes, Mr. Paul Fahidi of Grade 3 Yellow and Ms. Michaela Kilbride Grade 3 Blue, I was able to get a bit more insight into the process and experience for the children in building their monsters. As spoken early, each monster’s physical characteristic was randomized through probability dependent approach. This, to an extent, made it hard for the students to create their monsters. Some students had seen difficulties working around the enacted limit, yet every kid was able to overcome the barrier and create their creative monsters.

However, the actual process took a couple of weeks as the students went from first writing about their monster, choosing elements of personality and physical appearance, building the presentation board, and then finally getting the chance to sell the monster’s services! The teachers pointed out how the kids themselves were very excited throughout the process. As I saw on the day, the event was buzzing with happiness, with kids calling out for the people to look at their monster and chatting about it with everyone. The event, throughout the building process, was met with constant satisfaction from the students and built many learning skills that would help the students further in their education.

Purpose of the event and the experience

The purpose of this experience was to build students’ speaking and presentation skills. The act of being able to convince a person of interest to vote for your monster required a lot of persuasion and adaptive abilities. The students were given a chance to produce their comprehensive elevator pitch which enabled them to interact with other grades. An experience that would fuel a student’s wider approach to a task, and widen their intra-school interactions. However, as the process itself included everything from creative writing, critical thinking, and communication, students were thrown into expanding many characteristics of themselves. As noted by Ms. Michaela of Grade 3 Blue, the activity was an all-encompassing experience that brought forward a new and exciting way of working on many skills as a means to grow a student’s skill set. Seeing their work, you would have noticed how well explained, how intricate, and detailed their works were – with many of the students having complex and unique elements for their monsters. The overall experience was educative and explorative to the students, producing a successful Monster For Hire fair.

Want to create your own Monster For Hire? Follow these steps with some pointers and advice from the grade 3 kids themselves:

  1. Choose a profession your monster will be part of. It can be anything from a farmer to a pilot!
  2. Create a character sheet on what personality traits, fears, likes and dislikes and quirks your monster will have. Remember to include their values, some history from their background, and their subjective personality – such as name, age, number of family members, etc…
  3. Find dice and roll it 5 times, and following the below compare sheet, build the visual element of the monster. You can add anything outside this list, yet if one of these numbers does roll, you have to include them in your monster!

Role 1: Eye Color

  1. Blue
  2. Green
  3. Purple
  4. Orange
  5. Black
  6. Rainbow

Role 2: Number of eyes

  1. No eyes!
  2. 7 large separate eyes.
  3. 2 human eyes.
  4. 20 very small eyes.
  5. 3 horizontal pupil eyes, the ones similar to sheep!
  6. 1 Cyclops eyes!

Role 3: Body Structure

  1. A GIANT. Two large legs and two large arms.
  2. 4 hands with a lot of fur all over their body.
  3. A jelly body with no limbs.
  4. A very large head with no ears.
  5. 8 tentacles with 8 fingers on each tentacle.
  6. A pair of wings.

Role 4: Body Color

  1. Orange with purple streaks all over.
  2. Purple from head to toe.
  3. Green from the hip and below. Blue from the hip and above.
  4. Red with streaks of pink.
  5. A golden and silver streak against a orange body.
  6. A mix of light blue and light pink.

Role 5: What are they wearing?

  1. A brown hat.
  2. A blue and purple cardigan.
  3. Glasses.
  4. A grey scarf, with your own colorful design, around their neck.
  5. A small little cap on their head.
  6. A jacket with a picture of a mythical creature of your own choice.

All the best on your monster, and if you do end up making one, share it with the Bailanysh News Team, and we will love to present it to the school!