Tuesday, October 9, 2007

"Eoo By Myself"

As most of you know, Noah has started kindergarten and has been learning to read and write much more intensely than ever before. His teacher is wonderful, making them write every single day in a section called Writer's Workshop.


They sit down with a blank piece of paper and draw a picture to illustrate their "story" in the top half and then write their "story" in the bottom half. I put story in quotes because it usually consists of one sentence describing the picture. What is cool, is that even though these kids do not know how to spell more than 6 or 8 words, she encourages them to just sound out what they want to write, and spell it the way they think it might be spelled. They haven't quite figured out the rules of spacing between words, but we have been just thrilled with the results! Especially when Noah wants to "write a story" at home.

He spends a good 20 or 30 minutes on each story and then holds it up and yells, "Mommy! Daddy! Here! Read my story!!!!"

This statement is met with some trepidation as he often shows me great works of art that are what I would call abstract, but which Noah sees more as photographic realism which should be obvious to all. I have learned the great mothering phrase: no, not "What is THAT??", but instead, "Tell me about your picture!". Well, when it comes to reading stories, we are faced with breaking his little heart if we can't make out his sentences.

But!! I have to say that most of the time, we have been able to actually work out what he has been writing! And it makes a proud Mama just want to cry sometimes...

Here are some examples. I will interpret them so that you can follow along, until you get the hang of how it works:




"I like to see the baby bear."



"I am a person who likes to buy cars."


"I like to go to the science museum."


"There is a fire and the police have to come."

I have to say, that some of these are fiction, some non-fiction. I will leave you to wonder!

This one was one of Daddy's favorites...


"Dear Dad, I wrote this story all by myself."



4 comments:

Snowbird said...

That's fantastic. Great job Noah. I'm really, really proud of you. I love your stories. I can't wait to see more.
Love, Beyuh

Hey, Mommy, can you pass that on for me?

Oh, and Mommy, if you can't read what he writes, just have him read it to you. Or have you tried that??

Shama-Lama Mama said...

Oh we at least give it a try. He doesn't get TOO upset when we get it wrong. I think his whole point is to see if we can read it, so if he has to read it, its a bit of a failure. We do our best, and find its usually not so hard to read!!

And of course we smother him with hugs and kisses when we finish it!

Beckie said...

Those are some pretty good stories! I think he is doing a fantastic job.

I have one in 2nd grade and one in pre-K so I sort of "got" what was happening in the stories. I tried to read them before I read the captions. I am proud to say I didn't do too bad.

Anonymous said...

Those are so cute!

Thanks for stopping by and for the advice. I've never heard of Edamame, but sounds like something I might like. Thanks!