Fitz
composing shapes — small shapes fit together to build a bigger one
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Fitz was a busy little bird who loved small shapes. Triangles, squares, half-circles — Fitz would gather them up and fit them together to build something brand new. "Little pieces," Fitz chirped, "can make a big whole."
Fitz laid two triangles side by side, long edges touching. Snap — together they made a square! "Two triangles make a square," Fitz sang. One shape, built from smaller shapes. It was like magic, only it was just fitting.
A young rabbit wanted to build a house shape but only had a square and a triangle. "Put the triangle on top of the square," Fitz said. The rabbit tried it — a square with a pointy roof. "A house!" she cheered. Two shapes, one house.
Fitz also loved going backward. A big shape could be taken apart into its little pieces. "This hexagon," Fitz said, "is really six triangles hiding together." Fitz nudged them apart, then fit them back. Wholes came from parts, and parts came from wholes.
By sunset Fitz had built a whole village out of little shapes — square houses, triangle roofs, half-circle hills. Fitz perched on top and looked out over all of it.
Every big thing down there had started as small, separate pieces. And Fitz had fit them together, one by one, into something whole. That, Fitz thought with a warm little flutter, was the best feeling of all.
The BlockTots ensemble
Fitz is part of BlockTots's distributed-narrative cast. Each character embodies a different curricular primitive; together they teach the full subject.
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Spindle
Mental rotation (hero) — a squirrel who turns a piece in her paws until it drops into the hole; rotating-to-fit IS mental rotation
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Cubby
Spatial relations & vocabulary — a mouse who tucks himself over/under/inside/next-to on cue; enacting the position words IS spatial language
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Timber
Visuo-spatial construction — a beaver who copies a shown block model, stacking to match; reproducing a build IS construction
