What Were They Thinking?

Benjamin came home from school yesterday, proudly carrying his latest craft projects, pictured here. Yes, in case you are wondering, the matches are real. (I took one out of his "big bomb" and tried it out, just to be sure.)

Now seriously... who thought it would be a good idea for kindergardeners and first graders to assemble matches and toilet paper rolls? Who thought it would be fun to put matches with corks? Whatever happened to "Don't play with matches?" And on what planet do matches belong in an elementary school craft kit?

Perhaps I'm overreacting... (she says as the house burns down around her...) I'm just waiting for an appropriate time for these creations to disappear, or contribute to the fireplace. Sorry, but these aren't "keepers".

The Assignment and The Problem

The Assignment: read for 15 minutes, 4 times a week.

The Problem: she can't put the book down. Usually it is a shorter book which she finishes. Unfortunately, she has chosen the first of the Harry Potter books. Three nights in a row we have come up to her room to find her still reading at 11pm! And unfortunately, this sounds quite familiar to me...

A Ghost Story

Annika had to write a ghost story for school, so she finally got "inspired" and wrote one. She starts a beautiful story about a little girl who loves dolls. She writes well, with lots of descriptions and dialogue. We meet the nice little girl, her (nice) family, see the family in action at their (nice) dinner, and go into quite a few details. Three pages into the nice story, the girl goes into the woods, falls into a hole, sees a ghost and dies. Then her family buries her body and mourns her loss.

The End.

Build up = 3 pages, Hole-to-deadly-ending = 1/2 page.

"How did you like it?" she wants to know.

"Ummm... it was very well written.... do you think it is a bit abrupt at the end?" I reply.

"Well, it was supposed to be scary."