writing from the 5th grade

This is a personal narrative Lariza shared at our writing celebration to end our unit last Friday:

"Woo, Woo, Woo!" An elated voices says. I turn around its, its, ....her my 5th grade teacher. I look at her straight in her sky blue crystal eyes and she stares at me, no one else but me with her beautiful eyes.

And I heard the words, "We will have a blast in 5th grade together this year," not from her mouth but straight from her heart. I felt my heart pumping as fast as the wind blowing through my midnight black, long hair. My cherry red blood went up to my legs, straught through my belly, up my arms, through my neck, and up out of my mouth the words came out, "Hello." And then she tells me hello back.

She says, "Take a good look at your new 5th grade classroom" and I stare for 5 long seconds to the window. I felt happy. I could see the sunlight poor throuh the window like a waterfall and spill all over the coffee brown carpet.

And then I see some words on the wall that say, " I promise to help you become readers, authors, writers, leaders, yourself."

"I hope those words come true" I say to myself.



Now let me say a few things about Lariza. She is an English Language Learner like the rest of my students and she is currently on a 3rd grade reading level. She took Lester Laminack as her mentor author used his book "Saturday and Teacakes" to enrich her own writing. While there are grammatical errors, the crafts she used was what took her skill of writing to another level.

And I must say...it really didn't hurt her that she wrote about her teacher! It's stories like this that give me that boost of encouragement to keep on going! Such sweet words.

Barnes and Noble

Everytime I walk into Barnes and Noble I get excited, fall in love, etc... It doesn't matter which B&N it is. I love all of them: Macon, Atlanta, Greenville, Birmingham, Ashville, Knoxville, any... I am always reminded of the different books i have read over my life each time I go in and all the different marks each book has had on my life.

I was reminded of one of these books last night during my short B&N run...the Wisdom Hunter by Randall Arthur. It's been a few years since I last read this fiction book but I remember finishing the book wanting to live my faith deeper, stronger, and just better. This book had such a deep mark on my faith journey.

What about you? Do you have a book that marked your faith journey with Him?

flower

So I got this flower today from Denise...one of my precious girls in my 5th grade class this year (who looks just like Bernice..Birdie's daughter in the movie Hope Floats). In all of my years (high school and college) of delivering flowers I never saw one like this. It is so beautiful! I'm not sure what it is, but it is so gorgeous. Denise told me she picked it this morning from her mom's flower garden (I'm really hoping mom was okay with that).

Across the Hall teachers

I am back but my time will be primarily spent on a new blog that a coworker and I have created. The site is slowly going to be filled with tons of resources for teachers to aid them in the process of teaching reading and writing workshop. I'll be back on here some to comment on the sweet and funny things of life, but I am really excited about this new tool we are creating. Check it out.

http://acrossthehall.wordpress.com/