Snake Land in the Snow

At GUS, our child-centric approach to learning puts students at the center of their learning.

What does that look like in practice? In pre-K it looks like a tree house in the classroom, and a story written and illustrated by students.

The Making of Snake Land in the Snow

The Magic Tree House books have been a favorite choice to listen to during pre-K rest time. As we started to see the books come alive in the students' play, we challenged them to write their own Magic Tree House story.

To start, we built a tree house in the classroom. Naturally, themes began to arise in the children’s play, and The Magic Tree House began to arrive at GUS. When not playing ‘Jack and Annie’ in the forest, another central theme in students’ play was ‘Snake Land’ where students pretend to be friendly snakes along the GUS Nature Trail. Eventually, this became the plot for our story. We worked with students in small and large groups to work out all the elements of the story. All of the quotes are directly taken from their play or from classroom discussions. Students worked hard to collage their artwork for the illustrations and made this story come to life.

We hope you enjoy Snake Land in the Snow!