Character Ed?

Last year I had a group of 12 fourth graders in my gifted class. They picked a country to research, and I taught them how to use MS Publisher. They created awesome brochures. Then they picked a folk tale from their country and investigated that. We found scripts and created our own for these folk tale plays. They built moving mouth and arm puppets (they came out AWESOME!) and created scenery. We then performed their 5-10 minute puppet shows for the entire first grade. It was a fun project and they loved it.

That being said, I want to keep the puppet element and technology piece, but possibly change topic this year. I thought maybe character education might be a good thing for them to design their own skits about and educate the 1st graders. They need to be funny to hold the 1st graders' attention.

Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas? I'm putting my order for supplies in this week and debating materials/felt,etc..

Re: Character Ed?

I teach social skills to elementary aged children who have asperger's/autism as well as social-language issues. Regardless of disability or not, I would suggest going the route of decision making at a first grade level. So many times these little ones make bad choices on the playground or even on bathroom breaks, but I don't think they know they have options or even try to think about those options.