JoanWink.com

Dear WinkWorld Readership,

Yesterday I drove to a local school, Atall, about 50 miles away to read a story, and I was stopped in my tracks by these critters.

See Atall School here.

I waited until the cattle got by me, and soon I arrived where Missy, the teacher, has 13 students in 7 grades. In this age of Common Core, teaching the mandated curriculum for 7 different grades seems overwhelming to me. She describes it as “triage.”

I read Sweet Pea & Friends: The SheepOver. All of the kids particularly liked the play-on-words of “sheepover,” and I was even able to slip in the use of double entendre.

Next Missy read The Keeping Quilt, while all of the kids sat on the quilt from Missy’s great-grandmother.

If you look carefully, you can see the quilt where the kids are seated.

Hear Patricia Polacco reading the story on YouTube.

See the quilt and hear the author/illustrator.

After hearing the story, we talked about quilts in our families.

See Everett and Bailey, the great, great-grandsons of the woman who made the quilt for Missy.

The kids remembered The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak, which I had read to them last year. Of course, they wanted to hear that one again.

Here is the author, B.J. Novak, as he reads his story.

Before I left, Missy and the kids gave me a book, The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds, and they showed me their dots, which they have created.  My assignment is to make my own dot.  Gotta get to work on that one.

See The Dot here.

Hear the story here on YouTube.