by Rachel Peachey

I woke up feeling a bit under the weather.  There’s a persistent sore throat going around in our family that none of us seem to be able to kick completely.  However, off to the library I went, hoping to be energized by the group of young people.  It worked!  Kids are full of everything us adults need.  It was like a therapy session!  Laughter, excitement and just general happiness from the kids had me feeling better in no time.

Today, we practiced synonyms.  The kids tried to think of synonyms for some fairly normal, unexciting, blah words like big, small, nice, shoes etc.  Then, they each wrote a quick short story.  Next, I had them work in partners, exchanging their stories and each looking for at least 3 words to change out for a synonym.  They had fun tweaking each other’s stories – changing emotions of characters from “angry” to “furious” and the mention of a “bird” to a “parrot.”  Cool!

Then, we got busy reading and the children spent time reading independently.  The kids each keep track of the books they read on their very own reading log.  They are very motivated and love writing down each title of each book they’ve finished.

We finished off the morning playing a game all together in the patio of the church.  What a lovely morning.  It was much better than spending the morning moping in bed!