Doodle Bugs!

Today with our 2nd/3rd grade buddies we did a fun activity called Doodle Bugs.  It is a shared picture.  Each student gets to roll the number cubes and draw a part of the bug.  One of my students came to the overhead and did a demo with me.  I had to add wings to the bug.  Everyone thought the wings that I drew looked like ears.  It was really funny.  The student then rolled and got to add a dialogue box to the bug.  She didn't know what to write.  One of the students raised his hand and said, "Write, 'My wings are not ears!'"  It was really funny!  Everyone got started with their buddy group.  As I was walking around the room one group of girls had labeled their picture, "Doo Doo Bug."  It was really funny!  Their Doodle Bugs turned out so cute.  They enjoyed working with each other and sharing the picture.  After our buddy activity was over, we had our class meeting.  I started class meeting with a poll: raise your hand if you liked  the activity of Doodle Bugs (29 out of 29 hands went up), raise your hands if you want the chance to do another Doodle Bug with your buddy (29 out of 29 hands went up).  This activity made me laugh so much!  But perhaps more importantly, this activity comes from our Caring School Community curriculum. It was such a great way to build a caring school community across three grade levels.  Ironically, I was talking to a parent after school about her child being in the county spelling bee.  The younger sibling came up and she was one of our buddies.  We started talking about both children's buddies over the past two years since the kids were new to the school last year.  In our short side conversation about buddies, we made a lot of connections- a community!