Sprout

This week is teacher conference week. I attended the conference for Noah yesterday. During the conference, his teacher told me what a pleasant and smart little boy he is and how hilarious he is. Then, she produced the folder of work she had saved. She saved her two favorites for last. They were both writing assignments and she was impressed with his writing skills. As I read them, I felt pride swelling up inside me. Noah is like me in so many ways. Some of the traits I am so very sorry I passed on to him, but this one makes me ecstatic.

The class read a story called Just Like Abraham Lincoln and afterwards, his teacher asked them to use the first line of the story, " My neighbor, Mr. Potts looks just like Abraham Lincoln." and make it their own and develop into a story. Here is Noah's story:

Mr. Bush is my neighbor. He has the same last name as his wife. His wife sometimes gives me lollipops. Zoe likes them too, but she makes a mess. The lollipops are yummy! Lick! Lick! Lick! Yum. Yum. Yum. Better than ever. Oh those days! (all punctuation is his)

I think that's pretty good for a first grader!

The other sample came after they read the Dr Seuss story, The Sneetches. The story is a lesson about discrimination where one group of Sneetches has stars on their belly and they are the "in crowd". They exclude the sneetches without stars on their belly until a traveling salesman brings a machine to town that will put stars on the bellies of the Sneetches with none. They pay to have this done and then the in crowd is upset because they can't exclude the others , so they pay the salesman to take the stars off their bellies and they go back and forth squandering all their money to the salesman until they are confused and don't remember who was in and who was out.

Noah's teacher asked them to write a paragraph about how they would feel if they were in the in crowd, then write a paragraph about how they would feel if they were the ones being discriminated against. Here are Noah's paragraphs:

If he were in the in crowd:

I am the best because I have a star from the lonestar state. Because I am glad to be the best because we are the best.

If he were not in the in crowd: ( this is my favorite):

Blah Blah Blah. I don't know what you are talking about. P.S. You're the worst people ever.