Deep underground beneath Perfect Pets, where children can buy genetically engineered "perfect" creatures, there is a secret lab. Barnabus and his friends live in this lab, but none of them is perfect. They are all Failed Projects. Barnabus has never been outside his tiny bell jar, yet he dreams of one day seeing the world above ground that his pal Pip the cockroach has told him about: a world with green hills and trees, and buildings that reach all the way to the sky, lit with their own stars. But Barnabus may have to reach the outside world sooner than he thought, because the Green Rubber Suits are about to recycle all Failed Projects . . . and Barnabus doesn't want to be made into a fluffier pet with bigger eyes. He just wants to be himself. So he decides it's time for him and the others to escape. With his little trunk and a lot of cooperation and courage, Barnabus sets out to find freedom -- and a place where he and his friends can finally be accepted for who they are.

This suspenseful, poignant and magical story about following your dreams and finding where you truly belong will draw readers into a surreal, lushly detailed world in which perfection really means being true to yourself and your friends.

After reading this story, we spent the week completing activities using the story “The Barnabus Project” by the Fan Brothers. The students started by making predictions and had the opportunity to share them during class discussions. After listening to the book, we spent time making connections between events, the setting and main characters. The students worked on written responses by summarizing the beginning, middle and end. They also identified and reflected on the author’s main idea. Next week, the students will create their own perfect pets and write descriptive paragraphs. 

In Math, we have been working through our Statistics unit. The students have learned how to formulate statistical questions and collect data. They have also been working on how to represent data using pictographs, bar graphs and dot plots. This week, the students started a graphing project to demonstrate their understanding of the unit. They were asked to create their own statistical question and gather the data by surveying their classmates. Next week, they will create all three kinds of graphs to represent the data they collected.