Presents

I read aloud, like a lot, to my kindergarten kids.  Now I'm teaching my kids to read more naturally so they don't sound like little Korean robots, no inflection or tone in their voices.  I record the stories for them and email them home to the mommies so they can listen to me and practice using their voice in story telling.

The kids love it (and read their stories WAY more often at home), and the mommies think I'm heavensent because it's not something the teachers at our school usually do - win:win for me!!  The past 2 weeks kids have been bringing storybooks to school for me to read aloud when we have a few minutes to spare at the end of each block (and I happily oblige them in a love of reading!)

The other day in the classroom we were having our second or third conversation about typeset in their storybooks.  We started with a discussion about the 'strange' forms of a/g/q/t/I that we see in stories that (big bad meanie) teacher won't let them use in their writing.  Then we started talking about why writers use italics and bold in stories.  They know about the exclamation point, commas, and periods, but they've never really absorbed the meanings of these 2 new things.

I often give words kid-friendly qualities when I'm trying to explain things that are a little out of the ordinary.  For example, in case you didn't know weird is a naughty word because it doesn't follow the rules of 'I before E except after C').  My kids remember things more easily this way, and it makes them giggle so I make it as strange as I can for them. 

Last week I was trying to explain emphasis to my bright little stars.  I told them that words printed in bold and italics, ones that "looked special" were stronger than the others (of course modelling strong by strutting around flexing my muscles, and in turn walking around the table to squeeze the biceps being flashed at me by my money-see-monkey-dos.  When the giggling died down and I could continue the lesson I told them that when we are reading those words we had to use a stronger voice!  It worked like a charm, and now every time my little darlings read these kinds of words aloud to me they remember to add a little somethin' special to their voice.

Today I got a present from one of my little ones, Edward (mom swears the name didn't come from the twilight series, but I choose not to believe her because I'm an Edward fan).  So yes, Edward is the little boy who joined us at the end of the summer, and hardly ever spoke before January.  He's very shy (in Korean as well as English) and rarely puts himself out there (unless he's jumping off the top of the playyard fortress!). 

Now he rattles off a storm of silliness and tells me wonderfully hilarious stories about bumble bee swordfights and teacher-eating monsters when he's so inclined, which is often (hmm, now that I think about it, I should ask him why his monsters always want to eat the teacher...). 

In August he couldn't write more than his name, and while I cannot convince him to spell teacher properly, he will write and write and write when he has time.

The present was this beautiful box of chocolates (yum!)

and the letter you'll find right below.

Now, I went on and on telling you about the silly reading lesson I gave to my kidlets because of what my friend Edward wrote on the back of his letter...

So he couldn't figure out how on earth to bold or italicize his printing, but do you see it??

First I was confused, but then...
Ohhhh, it made me giggle... I love my job.