You've Got Dragons

Many of my students have been here since Preschool or Kindergarten. We know them, they feel comfortable and safe, we love them.

As we get closer to the end of the school year, many of our 4th graders start to feel anxious about moving to our intermediate (5th & 6th grade) school next year. All 3 of our elementary schools feed into the intermediate school, so they will be suddenly be little fish in a big pond, moving from teacher to teacher each day, recess and lunch time will look very different, and they will be trying to figure out the social aspects of their cohort.

Naturally, I started looking for picture books that address dealing with change, anxiety, etc... This nugget popped up in a couple of lists and our school library had it! I looked it over and wasn't sure how my students would respond, but I decided to use it as a read aloud and see what happened.

They were completely engaged! Nick Maland's dragons are not too scary, his children seem powerful, which perfectly supports the text. Kathryn Cave has done a tremendous job of using dragons as a metaphor for our individual challenges in life. I wondered if my students would understand that, and sure enough, the moment I finished reading it, two hands shot up in the air, both with the same question, "What do the dragons represent in this story?"

Me: What do YOU think they represent?
Student: Our problems.

BAM! We had the perfect jumping off point for a conversation about the dragons that 4th graders face and they had a lot to say. Interestingly, many of them named their siblings as dragons :), but by and large, they talked about pressure to do well in school, athletics, music, etc... was at the top of their lists. These are 9 and 10 year olds - NINE and TEN.

Someone brought up being the new kid at a new school and I had the opportunity to point out that every 5th grader will be the new kid at a new school next year and this is their chance to decide how they want their classmates to remember them years from now.

We have many read alouds and discussions ahead of us in the coming weeks, but I could not be more pleased with the outcome this picture book instigated.