Hi Celia,
I liked your description of how you would use this activity with your kindergartners. I like your approach of modeling the creation of a figure and then having your students create their own creature that they would use for a specific purpose. The students follow your lead, but not exactly, giving them the freedom to experiment with different features. Furthermore, the purpose (gathering information) provides a modest constraint on their experimentation that requires them to be thoughtful in their selection of features and possibly providing a natural transition to a different language based activity.
I liked your description of how you would use this activity with your kindergartners. I like your approach of modeling the creation of a figure and then having your students create their own creature that they would use for a specific purpose. The students follow your lead, but not exactly, giving them the freedom to experiment with different features. Furthermore, the purpose (gathering information) provides a modest constraint on their experimentation that requires them to be thoughtful in their selection of features and possibly providing a natural transition to a different language based activity.