At the beginning of the school year when Trenton Elementary School kindergarteners were read the story ” I need my Monster” by Amanda Noll, they had no idea that the monsters from their imaginations could come to life and take on a story of their own. But, that is exactly what those monsters did.
After reading the story, the kindergarteners created drawings of what a monster living under their bed might look like. Those drawings were given to high school instructional aides who took those monsters on a journey.
Now nearly seven months later, the monsters have been presented back to the kindergarteners as an end-of-school gift from the instructional aides that worked with them at the beginning of the year.
But these monsters were different. They have gone on a journey, created their own stories and returned to their original owners Friday morning with a new story to tell.
“This is a really big collaborative effort between me and three other teachers and their classes and the kindergarten class,” Trenton High School teacher Keylee Blain said Friday morning. “I came across a version of this project and that is kind of where it started. It ended up being even bigger than what we imagined.”
Blain teaches junior and senior instructional aides who are considering a future career in education.
“The story is about a monster that lives under a kid’s bed,” Blain said. “He ends up going on vacation and the little boy just really wants his monster back. He misses his monster. All these monsters try to fill in, but it really is not the same. Yes, it is about monsters. But, these are not scary monsters. They are actually friends.”
The instructional aides helped create hand sown monster dolls.
“I got with three of the other teachers,” Blain said. “They are amazing. I asked them if they would like to take part in this project. They wanted to and immediately said yes. I told them what we were doing.”
From there, freshmen English students wrote stories about the little monsters, but they did not want the project to end there.
“They are all personalized and individual stories,” Blain said. “There are no two stories that are exact same for every single monster.”
Those stories were illustrated by high school art students, and senior construction students created sublimation backpack keychains of the kindergarten student’s drawings.
“Again, no two look the same,” Blain said. “That is something that is really special bout this project. Everyone gets their own unique story and monster and book.”
Blain said the project really encompassed a lot of the high school campus with nearly 75 students across classifications working on the yearlong project.
“We are a 2A school, but that is a lot of students that contributed on this project,” she said. “I would say our staff at Trenton High School is very family oriented. We work really well together. It was kind of a flawless project.
“We did have a few hiccups, but communicating with my coworkers, we work so well together. It was so amazing to see in this day and age, kids wanting to do so much for someone else. We are kind of in a world where children are not as focused on other people. But these students really did do this work for others.”
She also said that each student had the opportunity to participate in the project in a way that highlighted their individual talents.
“We have a lot of kids that are involved in a lot of areas,” she said. “Then you have some that are not. Some of my favorite work is from students who are not A-honor roll students. They are not part of the football team. They kind of stick to themselves, but they really showed of their many talents throughout this project.”
What is the best part of this project? The kindergarten students did not know anything about it.
“They read the story and drew their pictures. That is all they knew,” Blain said. “Honestly until yesterday, the different teachers did not know all what this was. When I first brought this project to them, we were just going to do a replica of the drawings of the monsters. That was it. That was all they knew.
This memorable project is also being shared with parents with a laminated copy of the original monsters created by the kindergarteners.
“I truly thank my high school kids because the group that originally started this goes to work as aides,” Blain said. “This is for students who want to be teachers. This is where this project started. I think this will be very memorable for them as well as they go out and maybe do become teachers. They can incorporate this project wherever they go.
“I think as a teacher it is important to remember to give back to others. That is one thing I really wanted to teach my students is that it is not just about what we are doing in the classroom. It is about what we are doing for others and what we do in our community.
“We could have just stopped at the monsters, but we had a vision. It is really cool to see that come to life. Just challenge yourself and push yourself.”
