[ A HOME FOR THE GOAT AND THE JAGUAR ]

AUTHOR: CÂMARA CASCUDO

1) ACTIVATE TO ENGAGE:

• Show students images of places where some animals live and ask them: “Who lives here? What do you see? What do you wonder?”

• Use loose, unstructured materials to create dwelling places while watching the images.           

• Take the children to a place where they will find pieces of cardboard that will be part of the scenery of the story we are about to tell. Use a table as the students’ worktop: display smaller pieces of cardboard with fittings, or choose bigger pieces, which are particularly attractive and which will require the children to cooperate to make the task feasible in real life. Get some inspiration here. Ask: “As you observe the scenery where our story takes place, what type of characters do you think you will see? What kind of animal could live here?”Get some inspiration HERE. 

• Ask: “As you observe the scenery where our story takes place, what type of characters do you think you will see? What kind of animal could live here?”

Get ready for the story!

• Ask the group if they have ever heard the story The House of the Goat and the Jaguar. Show them the illustrations with the characters which are on Aperte o Play. The teacher may either tell the story to the class or present the audiobook version of the fable. These are different reading challenges: while the former encompasses listening to an audiobook without the aid of images, the latter relies on the teacher performing a storytelling session of the fable, duly supported by illustrations. A third option allows the teacher to press play for the students to listen to the recorded story, either in English or in Portuguese, while showing scenes of the fable. Choose the one that suits your group best! 

>> Before the story:

• Look at this picture of the sea: Who lives here? 

• Look at this picture of a savanna: Who lives here?

• Look at this picture of a forest: Who lives here?

• Look at the first illustration: Who are the characters? What do they need to survive? What are they afraid of? What do they like? How do they feel?

• Take a stroll somewhere: Find 5 small animals that live here. What do they need to survive? What are they afraid of? What do they like? How do they feel?

>>During the story:

Focus on one of the animals in the story - What do you see? What do you see makes you say that? What does it need to survive? What is it afraid of? What does it like? How does it feel?

>> After the story: 

Show the last picture. What do you notice? What do you see makes you say that? 

2) PLAY TO CREATE:

• Materials

  • • Kraft paper

    • Cardboard paper 

    • Paper for coloring 

    • Building paper

    • Dunnage

•  Connector

  • • Brass fasteners

    • Wooden clothes pegs

    • Bamboo skewers

    • Wires

    • String

    • Glue stick

    • PVA glue

    • Small paper rectangles

• Building Patterns

• Allow the children to play with the scenery built so far and ask: 

“Would it be possible to create an equally interesting dwelling place, a home, that would suit both the goat and the jaguar? 

What do they like? What do they need? What are they afraid of? And how could you create a home for a giraffe and an ant to live in? Or for a parrot and an elephant?”     

• Choose two of the animals and complete an empathy map;

• Let us build! 

1st attempt: Use ONLY two materials to create a home for both animals;  

2nd attempt: Use ONLY three materials to create a home for both animals; 

3rd attempt:  Use MORE than three materials to create a home for both animals. 

• Analyze what they have all created. Comment on the projects, saying…

• I saw…

• I thought …

• I wondered…

A super MAKER tip: 

Hot glue is an amazing resource, but not always is it possible to use it. If you are alone in this journey, with a class full of kids, the best option is to create pre-cut fitting parts. They will be your “building blocks”. Find more ideas about how to use cardboard in pedagogical activities HERE. 

3) REFLECT TO SHARE

• Play tug-of-war for a few minutes.

• Introduce the dilemma in the fable -  “Both animals built the house together. Who does the house belong to?” Use the Tug-of-War Thinking Routine. Identify the factors that ‘attract’ each side of the dilemma. These are the two sides of the tug-of-war. Ask the students to come up with ‘tugs’, or reasons why they support one of the sides of the dilemma.      

• Ask them to think of reasons for the other side of the dilemma. Generate “What if…?” questions to better explore the topic.

• Now is the time to invite the people in our school to build a place for our playtime and our storytime: "Where could we build this space? What do we need? Who can help us? What materials could we use? What stories would we like to read? What materials would we like to have?"

[TAKING IT FURTHER]

>> Build things that allow children to get in. 

>> Build games with cardboard paper.

>> Build different thematic spaces with the sea, a savanna, or a forest, where Storytime can take place.