CN: The Wolf Is Coming!

The Wof is coming

The wolf is coming run!

He coming as fast as a gun run run!

Amy's Three Choices Poem

We loved this poem a lot today...we love many of Amy's poems, but this one made us really think about ourselves. Check it out here!

BG: Robo Destroyer!

Can you find Itty-Bitty Bot on each page? (Click on the image to view it bigger.)

There was a robot named: Bailey. He protects this world from evil! 

He was walking along and there was a . . . BAD GUY! Named Wesley. He was loading a truck full of money! That he robbed! He chased him down! On his motorcycle!

He caught him! 

And smashed his car.

Mmmmm.

Mrs. Overman got to eat a donut!

A Post for Teachers.

I have spent my year with my kids on Twitter. We've tweeted our way across the world and documented our little school community on our blog. I keep wondering--and people keep asking--why I teach this way.

I don't know. The end.

Just kidding.

Well, first of all, I got a SMARTBoard this year and I decided I didn't need the fancy toys it came with...I just wanted to use it to teach my kids that our world is much bigger than they think. Who cares if my SMARTBoard can make a perfect circle? Let's check out the world as it spins right now instead.

If you follow our blog regularly, you know about our treat exchange with our tweeps in Sligo, Ireland. Mr. Quinn and I emailed, finagled, and tweeted a few times to make it work. It wasn't hard, but it was unconventional. And it took a little time on both ends. After his class had nearly entered diabetic comas from eating more sugary, carbolicious treats than they'd had in their entire seven years, we emailed each other. This is what he said:

Hi Christi, I guess you guys will have a day tomorrow like I had today. Once the postman knocked on the classroom door and the kids saw the blue box, lessons went out the window. All they wanted to do was open another package, and another and another. Hopefully they didn’t go home feeling too ill. It was great and the kids really enjoyed it. Some were heard to mention on the way home that it was their best day at school ever!! Tweet us tomorrow.

Regards, Damien

This is why I do it. That line Damien Quinn said--"...it was their best day at school ever!!"--that's what I love. Learning, teaching, growing--and it's fun.

And we're not the only ones who think that way.

 The world is smaller than we know.

WH: Eagle's nest

WH was hoping you'd be able to understand how high up in the trees the eagle's nest is.  His illustration tells more of his story in addition to his words. Can you write like WH?

Link to our Tweeps in Ireland eating our treats!

Click here to see what our friends in Ireland did with all our treats!

Candies from Ireland! By MH and KL

The chocolate was good! The chips were good too. The chocolate was very rich and gooey in the middle. Mrs. Overman noticed that lots of our chips are flavored with cheese and the chips from Ireland were onion or chicken or salt and vinegar flavored. Our chocolate in America is mostly Hershey, and Irish chocolate seems to be mostly Cadbury. Some of the chocolate had fruit in it. The gummies were good and tasty! If you tried them, you'd like most of them! Everything we tried was yummy!

We tasted candy and chips from Ireland!

Here are our treasures! We were jumping around and screaming when Mrs. Overman opened them. She tried to take a picture of all the hulaballoo, but it was blurry (imagine that!).

You can see more of our treasures here.

If Mrs. Overman had a dollar for every time she had to tell us to stop screaming and sit down she'd be able to take a trip to Ireland herself!

Trying the Emerald Irish Caramels.

Those caramels were very chewy!

Did we mention how chewy those caramels were?

Ready for the next thing to eat!

KM is eating a sour fruit candy called Maynards Sours.

See the bag of Randoms? It was so full of many different shapes of gummies, like cell phones and rocket ships! What fun! No one got the same thing twice!

Guess what?

OUR PACKAGE CAME FROM IRELAND!

Riley thinks it smells delicious.

Beware of the Frog!

William Bee gives us lots of clues about Mrs. Collywobbles in this book...but you must look carefully as you peek in her windows. If you don't peek in her windows, you miss out on getting to know Mrs. Collywobbles better.
WE LOVE THIS BOOK!

KM: Cars

Slice of Life: Allie: Cousin

Today I heard my cousin from Oklahoma broke her arm. I don't know if it was her right arm or left arm. I am going to call my cousin and tell her to get better with her arm.

BG: Stuff

Seeing the inside and outside of something.

You can see what's happening inside the ambulance and helicopter as well as the background scenery in PN's spread.

Dress your characters...part 2!

BG dressed his character carefully to make his story better. Notice the kneepads? Since he was just trying out this idea, he did it in his notebook. It may be part of a future draft which eventually may become a book!

Slice of Life: Allie

Today my friend got on the bus this morning. While getting on the bus we found a dead bunny. Good thing the bus didn't run over him AGAIN!

Things Mrs. Overman Learned While Mailing Our Package to Ireland. (Slice of Life)

1. You may have to go to the post office three times before you can actually mail your package.
2. If you're mailing things overseas, you must fill out customs forms so the government knows what you're sending. They are very complicated!
3. A package full of snacks costs a lot to mail!
4. The post office ladies are very nice and promised that the package would arrive safely.
5. People are always surprised when they see a package that has cool kid writing on it that's going to the kids' friends in Ireland.

Dress your characters!

Writers add details (like clothing) to their characters for a reason. Some reasons are to keep the story realistic, to make a character more special, to make a character stand out, to keep your reader reading, to make your reader have a certain feeling, to add to your story so it will be better. Dressing your characters makes more people want to read your story because it looks better.

AW: Flipper the Dolphin

EC: Toad is Lost

JE: Cars

In our illustration study we've also learned that writers show distances traveled across pages. In JE's book, you can see how one vehicle travels across many cities over time. He too has a Different Kinds of Things page...can you find it?