Grade 5- Diamond

Joseph!  

He needed a recent picture for his "Pupil Inventory" sheet.

I hope to sneak a picture of MakMak soon somehow because he just lost one of his front teeth.  He's really shy about it and tries not to smile but he's too happy and smiley to hide it for real.  So cute.

This is Frances Anne.

She's a student in the class that I work with primarily (Grade 5- Diamond).  One day a few months ago--randomly-- she give me a story she had written and illustrated on bond paper entitled, "The Three Princesses".  I read it and gave it rave reviews and she said I could keep it.  I thought it was fantastic that she would do this without any prompting and I wanted to show her, and the rest of the class, that her hard work and creativity didn't go unnoticed.

I spent about a week or so with Frances Anne as she typed up her story on my computer during her recess breaks.  Even though the typing was something I could have easily done myself in about ten minutes, I thought it was important for her to do each step for herself and sat with her to help her "hunt & peck" every letter.  We decided on font and font size together and I printed the pages for her.  She filled them up with bright, colorful illustrations over the next week and handed them back to me, ready for the next step.

I had 2 copies of her story hard-bound at a shop in Naga for 200 pesos each (about $5): one for her and one for our future library's collection.

At the end of the day today, I asked Dinah if I could make an announcement before all the kids left for the weekend.  As I started to tell all the kids about how one of their classmates was now a "published author" and how she worked so hard to create her own book, they all knew it was her and got really excited to see the final product.  I glanced at Frances Anne a few times as I spoke and I swear her eyes moistened up a bit, whether it was from being embarrassed by her classmates' excited or because of her own excitement.  Either way, I had to stop looking at her or else I would have been the same way.

I presented Frances Anne with her own copy of her story and told the class we would keep the other in the 'class library' until the real school library was ready.  It was really fun to watch all the kids swarm the books to see what their classmate had created.  Dinah and I also encouraged all the kids to do the same and become authors themselves.  I hope they do.  I also hope they don't.  200 pesos x 38 kids.  Yikes.

Just like the elementary school I went to as a kid, I want to put student-authored books on the library shelves.  I pitched an idea to my teacher friends about having a story writing contest for National Reading Month where the winner from each grade level would have their story published like Frances Anne, and they were really into it!  They said we'll just have to make sure the students are the actual authors of the submissions.  Sometimes Many times, the moms/ates/kuyas are the ones who create the kids' projects; the kids aren't ashamed to admit it and the teachers don't care.

Last week, we had someone break into the room.  Smashed the padlock, stole some chocolates out of a drawer, left an unsmoked cigarette on the desk.  Dinah bought a bigger padlock.

Today, when I got to school, all the kids bombarded me as soon as I walked in yelling that someone had broken in again and this time, they stole the bell!  The bell to let the school know its recess time was housed in a wooden box in our classroom and the robber stole that and a bag containing Dinah's newly-purchased voice amplifier.  The police came and talked to the kid who was first on the scene and Dinah.  They took some evidence to dust for fingerprints and they were on their way.

The kids were pretty squirrely about having had the police come and one student, John Ricky, drew this fantastic sign:

"WANTED SUSPEC"

It's hard to see in the pencil drawing, but the man has a pointed head and a curly mustache... 

should be easy to find.

He later drew another "better" one:

"WANTED

THE MAN WHO STOLE THE BELL

REWARD: 110 MILLION"

My students! 

Since we're now about a month into Christmas season, it's only appropriate that my neighbor boy, Arthur, has switched from singing "Dance With My Father" every night while he washes dishes, to singing all kinds of Christmas carols!

Merrrrrrrrrrry Christmas!