End of Year Thankyous

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   Ending a school year runs through my veins. Once a teacher, always a teacher. I hope each one of you who have ended or are in the midst of completing the year with pizzazz have a lovely summer break wherever it may find you. I remember both the excitement and the fatigue.

  This year my oldest granddaughter attended second grade in a new school and she's had

a fabulous year. This isn't about the school, but a tribute to the impact that teachers make on their students. I thought you would like to know. This teacher started the year in part of her literacy curriculum by reading aloud Sharon Creech's wonder of a book, Love That Dog. Well, those who know me know that I love poetry, so now I was in love with this teacher! But that's not all. She not only read the book aloud, but the class studied each poem and each poet, then began writing poetry in those styles. Wow. To have Ingrid come home to show me poems written in the styles of Walter Dean Myers and Valerie Worth was a gift worth having. I began to think her teacher was Ms. Stretchberry in disguise!

 I've read lots of poetry to Ingrid and her sister, but this teacher and her approach, however it played out in the classroom, has made an impact on Ingrid that I imagine poetry will often be something she will turn to. She still writes in her journal, she still makes up rhyming songs, and she still turns to a book I own that I also bought for her classroom last fall at their book fair. It's the recent anthology created by Kenn Nesbitt and Christoph NiemannIt includes familiar and not so familiar current and past poets and poems. After I gave it to the classroom, Ingrid says her teacher read from it every day, and there was a list to sign up for students to read it during silent reading time. Nothing like making something important- a list of whose turn is next!

      Nearly every time Ingrid has come to visit, she pulls out the book and reads more poems, sometimes sharing with me, often reading silently. During that time, all of a sudden she will laugh, and say "listen to this one. Sara (her teacher-they use first names) read this one and it is so funny." I sent the book home with her this week. She says, "maybe for the summer, maybe for always. . ."

 This is why I'm writing tonight. I'm thinking of all the Ms. Stretchberrys of the world who, like my granddaughter's teacher, has given something they might never know they gave, a passion for something. 

 Thank you!