Oogies in School!

Recently I had a chance to visit my daughters' school and read a draft of an Oogies book to kids and invited them to draw and talk about their Oogies. They seemed to understand the concept well. When asked if Oogies were bad, good, or neither—almost all seemed to agree Oogies were a neutral concept. They especially seemed to grasp the idea that Oogies are like pets, that it’s up to you to take care of them and not necessarily the Oogie’s fault if he/she misbehaves!

The only prompt I gave them was that their Oogie could look however they wanted their Oogie to look, and anything their Oogie said was okay. A few inevitably drew their Oogies similar to what Elliot’s looked like, but most were unique: some looked like jellyfish, some looked like birds, and a few even came out like robots.

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One girl drew her Oogie to help express how she felt about her soccer game the day before:

​One boy who drew his Oogie was, unbeknownst to us, feeling anxiety because the principal had announced a fire drill that morning. Right before the fire drill happened, his fingers were stuffed in his ears and he was hunched up in his chair, unwilling to look at anyone, and doing the Oogie exercise beforehand gave us some insight as to what he was feeling.

Though not all Oogies were drawn to express fear or hurt feelings.
One boy drew his Oogie shooting nearby passers-by. When asked about his Oogie, the boy replied,
​“Oh, my Oogie is evil.”