2. Teamwork Written and illustrated by Ariana Curtis Rebecca Merriken Stephanie Gonsiewski

3. Dog, Horse, and Turtle settled down on the child friendly carpet with Mrs. Piggle- Wiggle waiting for their assignment to be spoken. “Today we will try to construct beautiful block castles.” Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle said enthusiastically. “How about Sheep picks two names out of our hat to start.”

4. While Sheep chose his partners from the hat, Dog, Horse, and Turtle patiently waited for their turn. Finally, it was Dog’s turn to pluck two of the cardstock papers that held his classmates’ names. He yanked two thick cards out of the magician’s hat, and blurted, “Horse and Turtle,” to complete his team.

5. Dog and his partners darted to the corner of the room to receive their package of wooden geometric shapes. The stuffed bag included 10 cylinders, 10 pyramids, and 10 cubes.

6. None of the three animals cared for each other, so they split up the blocks. Dog collected all the cylinders, and hid himself under a desk.

7. Horse took all the pyramids away from the group and built her castle.

8. Turtle dragged all the cubes to a different corner of the room all by himself

9. Each of them individually stacked their blocks to form separate castles…but they all experienced the same results over and over and over again. Wooden geometric shapes covered every final square inch of the floor. It no longer looked like a tiled floor anymore, it was a wooden floor.

10. With only ten minutes left on the clock, they felt that they had no other choice, but to get together and reform their group. Without speaking, each animal contributed their blocks one by one to make a breath- taking castle.

11. When Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle crept by, she congratulated the hard workers and even awarded them with gold stickers. She did this because she noticed how they used teamwork after trying to do it separately.

12. Dog, Horse, and Turtle were extremely proud of them selves and declared that they would be best friends forever.