Savannah's Big Imagination

I've been helping out in the girls classroom this past week so that the teacher can do some testing. It is actually pretty fun to meet the kids and work with them and my girls get a kick out of seeing me there. Their teacher has been doing some reading tests. she pulled me aside after Savannah's to tell me how she did. Basically part of what they do is they have the kids read the first few pages and then stop and ask them to predict what they think will happen int he story. Savannah's story started out about a bunny rabbit who finds a giant head of cabbage. When the teacher asks most kids to predict what will happen they say "the rabbit will eat the cabbage and be happy" which is pretty much what they are looking for just to see that they understand what they are reading. Well Savannah took it to a whole other level. She said "A bad rabbit is going to steal the cabbage and the bunny will be upset and cry. Then he will go to the mall and win $7,000 so that he can buy cabbage lunch for all the woodland animals. Then they will all cheer for him and have a parade in his honor." The teachers eyes were wide and she told me she had never had a child tell her a story with that much detail and imagination. When Savannah read what actually happened in the book she came back to the teacher and told her "That story didn't go anything like I thought it would!" We both had a good chuckle at that one.

Sydney the Activist

School pictures were this week. They sent home the info. and I was a bit annoyed with the way they are doing them this year. In the past they sent home the largest package of pictures so you could see what they looked like then you kept what you wanted and sent the rest back with payment. I'm sure this went well (sarcasm)! This year they want you to pay in advance of them even taking the picture and the package prices went up again and you have to pay for any background except gray (the gray is ugly, and isn't blue the accepted "standard" background anyway?!). They aren't even sending a proof home to see? Ridiculous! So I decided I wasn't even going to mess with school pictures this year and would just go up to Walmart and get them done. When I explained to the girls why they wouldn't be getting all dolled up for picture day Sydney told me that I should write a letter to the school to complain. Frankly, it's not that important to me so I hemmed and hawwed and basically blew her off about the letter.

Well, after her homework was done that day she sat down with pencil and paper and started writing a letter of her own. It started out "Dear Skool" and said that it wasn't right that we couldn't see the pictures before buying them and what if we didn't like them, etc. Very cute, but I figured she'd forget about it by bedtime.

The next day when I showed up to sign in at the office in order to help in the classroom the office staff informed me that she had delivered that letter this morning. They all loved it and thought she was the most adorable thing ever. The teacher even kept the letter to use in her writing grade!