Character, Setting, Action!!

I love the story The Meanest Doll In The World. I love to teach about social issues through literature  Meanest Doll can help children learn how to deal with characters like Mean Mimi in their own lives.  In the end The meanest doll causes so much trouble for the other dolls they start making plots to capture her! However, the meanest doll falls into her own trap, as she gets caught she pays the price for her behavior.


Here is a sample of the story from the book.

I make a brief stop in the book where the dolls are making plans to catch Mean Mimi. Meanwhile I insert a special Reading Rainbow's Stay Away from the Junkyard episode and Michael Ives!(available at Discovery Education) At the end of the storybook Burton introduces us to Artist Michael Ives who makes a moving story box~ and we have inspiration for a project!!

This clip is not the whole episode from Reading Rainbow 

is a sample of the story book, not the Michael Ives vignette. 

The Assignment: Create a moving story box, or diorama if you prefer,  that shows your plan to catch Mean Mimi, lesson focus on character setting and action. We did this in 5 steps:

1. create a written plan to trap Mean Mimi
2. confer with teacher about the plan
3. setting day: create the setting in our story box
4. create the character of the story box
5. create the action of our story box

*Like  Michael Ives, we create our diorama with materials we already have, we don't purchase new things! 

When we finish the boxes we finish the book, my kids were shocked that the nice dolls trap plan wasn't needed after all, and we have a talk about  how the Mean Mimi character, and people acting like her are setting their own traps!