Thursday, April 30, 2015

Careers in 1st Grade: Being Wendy

In first grade we have begun our month on thinking about our futures.  Where do we want to go to college?  What do we want to be when we grow up?  Our first lesson focused on the career options that are out there.  To get their brains thinking, we read Being Wendy written by Fran Drescher.



This story follows a young girl named Wendy on her journey of thinking outside of the box.  She lives in Boxville, where everyone must pick a box that shows their career choice.  Even the dogs where boxes!  Wendy cannot figure out just one career that she would like to have because she has many interests.



Throughout the story we talk about the following points (from The Corner on Character blog):

1.  Do you think everyone grows up to get the job they wanted when they were a kid? Share responses from the teachers at your school at this time to demonstrate that dreams change as we grow.
2.  If you set a goal to have a specific career someday and you grow up to be something different, does that mean you failed at your goal? 
3.  Wendy said that she felt different from everyone else, but was afraid to tell someone. Why do you think she was afraid? 
4. Is it a bad thing to be different from others? How do you treat people who are different from you?
5.   The author stated, “Wendy tried to take her dad’s advice, but the more she thought about it, the more she hated thinking inside the box.” Have you ever heard the expression, “thinking inside/outside the box”? What does it mean? How does it apply here?
6.  What do you think the town of “Freedomland” is like?

After the story we start brainstorming what we might want to be when we grow up.  Then we narrowed down what career we would want to have if we lived in Boxville, with one exception: it can be more than one idea!  Students created their Boxville character and wrote down many career options they are interested in pursuing.  You can download the body template from The Corner on Character here.

Here are some of the Boxville residents they created:


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