Third Grade Panda Stories

Third graders have recently begun working on fiction stories with a playful twist; their stories all have pandas as the main characters.  After having done a great deal of research on giant pandas throughout the winter, our focus on pandas has taken a fun turn as the children come up with fantastical stories about pandas with a variety of personalities and problems that need to be solved.

We began this process by working as a group to come up with possible problems that could occur if we wrote a story about a panda named Bruno who loves to cook.  The students enjoyed brainstorming a range of problems Bruno could encounter and also had fun thinking of ways that Bruno could find a solution to his various problems.  

We have now moved into the individual writing phase where each child is creating a panda character and a problem that fits with that panda’s personality.  This has been an opportunity for great creative expression for the students as they each invented a unique character to tell their panda story.  There is a clumsy panda who was baking a cake and dropped an important ring into the batter, a tiny panda who was made fun of for his small size, a skateboarding panda who broke her leg before a big competition and even a panda who opened a restaurant and had to find a way to solve the problem of lack of customers.

Embedded in the writing process, we are exploring a range of important writing skills and concepts.  We’ve discussed ways to develop character and to show the character’s personality through what the panda does, says and feels.  We will also be touching on setting, dialogue and developing plot as the students get deeper into their stories.  It will be great to see the student's writing develop as they work and re-work their story ideas into a final "published" product.