Thursday, March 13, 2014

Day 13 SoL Story Challenge: Little L Makes Her Own Lego Movie

Join hundreds of teachers and students as we practice our own writing by sharing a story from our own lives every day for the month of March.

I'm starting to realize there is a reason why it's called the Slice of Life Challenge.

During the first week, my biggest challenge was that I was rusty. After all, I had a baby on December 20, and I hadn't written a word or done a scrap of work until Day 1 of the challenge. 

At the start of the month, I thought that I might record Little L's stories each day, and have her as my coauthor. After a few days I found myself brimming with ideas. Little L was fully cooperating -- she had lots of ideas too and was loving all the extra attention she could get by offering up stories for the camera.

Fast forward to today.

Now that the novelty has worn out, she's not so cooperative. Yesterday, all I could get on camera was an exaggerated eye roll (yes, four year olds definitely do roll their eyes).  

I wound up using a backup story yesterday, an extra clip from a week ago that I hadn't thought I would use. 

Without any videos to post today, I wasn't sure what I'd do. I walked around all morning with  my camera in hand, hoping that Little L would start storytelling, or singing, or reading at some point, but every time she saw me hold up he camera she'd stop, scowl, and shout, "Blah blah blah blah blah!" I begged, I pleaded, I explained, I tried being sneaky with the camera hidden out of sight. I even bribed...with chocolate…and cookies when that didn't work. None of it worked. She just wanted to play with Legos and NOT be videotaped.

Just when I was about to give up and write my first SOLSC post without my little coauthor, I had a stroke of parenting/teacher brilliance. Little L had tired of me recording her but maybe she would let me record her toys...to make a movie... a Lego Movie of her very own.


It worked! L told a great story with her Legos and she loved watching her movie. Don't be surprised if you see more home-made Lego movies on this blog in the future. 

Now...what will I do tomorrow?

4 comments:

  1. I could listen to Little L all day - there's such a delightful lilt to her voice, a sense of being"in" the story. So glad that you decided to slice this way, Beth!

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  2. She is adorable and YOU are a genius! So smart! I demand more lego movies!

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  3. Thank you for sharing! So fun, cute, and an excellent way to slice!

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