Junie B. Jones

                                                             Junie B. Jones

Finally finished reading Junie B. Jones Dumb Bunny  by Barbara Park on the last day of school before Spring break!  Better late then never.  To celebrate my favorite book character, Junie B., and all of her adventures my class imitates the activities from each book.  In this story there is a jelly bean game in order to win what's in the pretty box.  All the children have to stick their hand in a bag and whoever picks the one purple jelly bean wins what's in the box. So we played the same game, I have the pretty box all set up.  My class is sitting in a circle and we start to review what happened in the story and all the scenarios that could happen while playing. For example, there will only be one winner and if the purple jelly bean is picked before it's your turn the game is over, just like in the book.  Also in our school it is frowned upon to eat foods of minimal nutrition so jelly bean eating is a no, no!  I just got finished explaining that we couldn't eat the jelly bean after they picked one from the bag because I would get in trouble.  Then one of my smarty pants student says, who will know, what, are there cameras in the classroom and the police will show up if we eat a jelly bean!  Like magic my principal walks in the room, couldn't have been better timing.  My response was we are going to be "Bucket Fillers" and do the right thing and here is the police now!  That smarty learned a lesson and the game began. It was great my student observer tally graphed the jelly bean colors that came out of the bag and half way through one lucky duck picked the purple one!  My principal was so surprised at the student's reactions who never got a turn, they were all bucket fillers.  I am sure you are wondering what was in the box. I asked my students what I should buy to put in the box for our game because they always have the best ideas.  In the book, the prize is a bunny costume, so  in our box were bunny ears and a chocolate bunny.  The winner left the ears on all day! 

The day before we had a golden egg hunt, just like the book!  We also include our reading buddies in on the fun. We hide the eggs on the playground, each child gets 2 colored eggs filled with chocolate but the best prize is the golden egg. The reading buddies both get the prize no matter which one of them find the golden egg. The winners get a Barnes N Noble gift card and a no homework pass.

 Besides all the fun activities we made a character trait of Junie B as we read each chapter. At the end of the story we listed setting, characters, problem and solution on a bunny of course!  All the kiddos made a miniature bunny and wrote text to self connections. OOPS forgot to take pictures of the mini bunnies.

When we come back from break my question of the day will be which activity did you like better the jelly bean game or the golden egg hunt?

 
             Junie B. Jones Dumb Bunny

Can't wait to get started reading the next Junie B book!

Kelly