The metamorphosis of protection
| Objective: To play with the concept of protection through multiple animal metamorphoses! |
Duration : 15 to 45 minutes
Material :
- Clothes and costumes
- Pillows and blankets
Instructions :
Many living beings protect themselves in nature. Some animals like turtles have a shell, others like chameleons camouflage themselves, and yet others make themselves look bigger than they really are, like pufferfish. Transform into each of these animals to better understand the concept of protection!
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Prepare your metamorphosis. To undergo your metamorphosis—that is, to turn into something else—find clothes, blankets, pillows, or other everyday items that will allow you to:
- Encase yourself in a shell like a turtle
- Camouflage yourself like a chameleon
- Swell yourself up to look bigger like a pufferfish
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Experience your metamorphosis. Now that you have everything you need, transform into each of the animals, one after the other. Look at yourself in the mirror. Move around like the animal you are impersonating. You can try to make—or even invent!—the sound of each animal.
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Think about your metamorphosis. After this metamorphic experience, think about these questions: Is it necessary to protect ourselves in our daily lives? Is protection necessarily physical? Perhaps it can also be emotional, cultural, spiritual... Can we protect ourselves too much? Why or why not?
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Bonus : Parles-tu français ? As you put your protective props back, listen to the podcast episode on animals from Les jeunes sages. Drawing inspiration from the reflections of the young philosophers, try to answer the question: Are animals free ? Do you agree or disagree with the answers proposed by the participants? Can you think of angles and arguments that they did not address? Try wondering about the link between protection, freedom and animals… Can you be free if you are not protected? Should we protect animals? If so, you may have to ask yourself from what or from whom animals need to be protected. Should animals have the same rights as humans? Why or why not? If you can't understand French, don't worry! You can still wonder about these questions! |
| Tricks for tots : While you are transforming yourself into the animals, imagine that a predator is chasing you. How will you protect yourself? Act as if you were the animal by getting into your shell, camouflaging yourself or puffing yourself up! Then, when the danger has passed, do a little victory dance, as if you're still the animal. If you enjoyed it, you can repeat the same scenario with the other two animals. How do you feel in your body when you're in danger? What about when you're protected? Does the way you protect yourself change the way you feel? Why or why not? |
| Tips for teens : To take your thinking even further, ask yourself what it was like to go through these different types of metamorphosis. Does our environment influence who we are? If so, to what extent? If not, is there another way to explain the relationship we have with our environment? You may also wonder whether it is possible to truly transform who we are... unless we have more than one self? |
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