Noticing the World

Last week, when the sun finally made an appearance on Friday afternoon, Christi and I ventured outside with her second graders and their notebooks. In the minilesson we talked about learning to write in new places. After all, I said to the class, summer break is coming and you’ll want to find a place around your house where you can keep writing. They all nodded in agreement. 🙂

We read No One But You by Douglas Wood and P.J. Lynch earlier in the week, so before going outside, I read the ending pages. I wanted the words to hang in their minds. (This is something I do regularly as a writer, I read work I’d admire to get the sound of words in my heart.) This book is a treasure. Here is one of the spreads:

So with their notebooks in tow, they went out into the world to notice things only they could see. After writing, I’m confident many of them will continue their daily writing habit long after we break for summer vacation.

(As a side note, I envision using this book to launch writing workshops next school year.)