Over the last few weeks children in School-age 2 have been bringing their Pokémon cards, sharing and comparing with their peers. After observing the growing Interest of Pokémon. Steph and I took some time to reflect and indentify ways to integrate their interest in Pokémon play into our program.
Steph and I found images and blank Pokémon cards to create their own characters and cards. This led the students to socialize with new peers from their usual day to day peers. We observed them expressing their Ideas and share their creative imagination with one another.
To expand on their interests, we wondered how we could bring Pokémon outside and create a real Pokemon hunt.. Using materials already on hand, we found clear ball ornaments and added Pokémon characters inside each ball. The container that the clear ornament balls were in was decorated as a red and white Pokémon ball.
Steph hid all 25 balls in the school yard, Lisa explained to the children the planned acitivity . The children began wondering outloud about what they might find and demonstrated enthusiasm to begin the Pokémon hunt.
One by one the children’s names were called to begin the hunt. The children ran across the field, searching throughtout the yard checking high in the tres and low around the rocks and bushes The were observed working as a team, helping one another when one could not reach to catch their Pokemon. Once found, they placed each clear Pokémon ball, Inside of the red and white Pokémon ball until they caught them all.
As we aproach the end of the month we wonder how else we might use their interest in the Pokemon cards. Cound they be used to practice numeracy through sequencing or addition and subtraction? Could they be used to build literacy skills as they write descriptions of their imagined characters using the blank templates? We wonder what they would like to do next ?
