As a culminating activity to our read aloud, The Wild Robot, we held our very own Dawn Truce. If you’re not familiar with what that is, in the book, the animals and Roz the robot gather in the great meadow at dawn to share ideas, problems, and so on. They promise each other that predators and prey will behave themselves and not hunt one another. 

Each student selected an animal or character from the novel and came prepared with an “issue” they needed to discuss at the Dawn Truce. They all did a really fantastic job and seemed to enjoy playing “in role” as the activity required. Our Roz the robot amazed us all with his robot costume he prepared. Many other students also put a lot of time into their costume or accessory. Well done everyone! 

We learned about tableau and that it means a frozen picture. We learned the rules of tableau and in groups, we re-created key scenes from the book using frozen pictures. If you know the book, can you tell which scenes we have captured with tableau?  

We enjoyed going to the movies as a class and seeing how the book differed from the film. Afterwards, we debriefed and did a compare and contrast. We noticed some characters we came to love were omitted from the movie such as Chitchat and Nettle and Thorn. I think we all agreed that the book came out on top and was favoured to the movie. There was no question the movie was exciting, fun, and made us a little teary-eyed at parts. 

We think you should go see it if you haven’t yet!

A big thank you to Mrs. D for joining us on our trip.