Kindergarten: The Bear Expert Team

Welcome to the first post of the InFlight Blog! InFlight began working with the Kindergarten classes on a process drama about black bears in New York 2 weeks ago and so much has transpired!

It all began with a paw print in Central Park. I showed them this picture, and they quickly identified it as a bear print. What in the world was a bear print doing in Central Park? The students turned on the news and saw me "in role" as a reporter explaining the mystery of the paw print on the evening news. The news program was interrupted by a message from the mayor of NYC! Again "in role" I played the mayor, completely overwhelmed by hundreds of phone calls that were coming into the office. They were all about the bear in Central Park. New Yorkers wanted to know why! They also wanted to know about bears: where they lived, what they ate, whether they were dangerous or not. The mayor begged New York to stop calling the office. Apparently he knows nothing about bears and neither does his staff!  He had other things to do so he pleaded for someone to help. "If only we had a team of people that could take care of all these phone calls!" he sighed.

Even before the news report was over, the students were raising their hands and bursting out of their seats to volunteer their services. As it turned out, they did know something about bears (definitely more than the mayor), and they were willing to help out in any way they could. Unanimously, both classes decided that they could become the "Bear Expert Team" for New York State. 

As the inauguration had taken place a couple days before, they agreed to be "inaugurated" as the Bear Team. First, we had to decide what a "Bear Expert Team" would do. In Georga's class, they decided to: be the babysitters of bears, take care of the bears in the forest and at the zoo, take care of the forest (as that's where bears live), teach the city about bears, watch bears, and go on the news once in awhile to tell people about bears. In Renee's class they decided to watch bears in the woods, take care of the bears, answer phone calls about bears, and look for footprints.

Both classes thought a proper inauguration meant that they should hold one hand up and one hand on their heart and that the mayor should preside. The mayor read their lists of promises and they repeated them. In no time at all they were the official B.E.T.  

As the B.E.T., we would need an office. We got out a map of New York State and identified where the forests were located. Renee's class decided that the office should be right on the edge of the Adirondacks, as that was the biggest area of green on the map and where most of the black bears probably lived. Georga's class placed their office in between the Adirondacks and NYC, as they were in charge of educating the city! 

Every office needs a door. So the B.E.T. set to work decorating their doors and making keys to open them. The work has begun!