After listening to some more of Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse I asked the kids to write about what a "verse novel" is (because they didn't seem interested in doing any sort of character analysis today). Miriam wrote a lovely essay about verse novels spanning ancient to modern times—from the Iliad to Brown Girl Dreaming. Benjamin wrote the following:
We also played a vocabulary game with words from the novel called I Have, Who Has? Even Zoë played. They seemed to like it so we'll have to try it again. This game forced Benjamin to utter the phrase, "I have distraction," which made us all giggle because...he often has distraction...or is distracted...or whatever. But it also made me think of Zoë.
Last night after dinner we went on a family walk—a popsicle walk, no less, so it was extra exciting—and Zoë was chatting while she walked. In truth we were all joking around quite a bit. And then I noticed that Zoë was going to walk directly into a parked car if she didn't start paying attention so I yelped, "Zoë!" and she put on her breaks a little bit but still ended up colliding with the car.
"Oh! I distracted right into that car!" she said, laughing about herself.
"You did 'distract' right into that car," I agreed with her, laughing.
I can't find the stories right now, but I know for a fact she is not my first child to walk into a car (here is a story about Benjamin walking into truck, but I know there are others out there (indeed: here's Rachel's tale and while we're on car/people collisions, here's a link to the time I slid under my friend Wendy's car and the time Zoë got hit by a car while riding her tricycle)). I still think there are other times my kids have walked into parked vehicles though...
A verse novel is a book written in poems like Out of the Dust and A Brown Girl Dreaming. If you want to read poems or if you like poems, visit your public library or go to www.versenovel.com (fake) for more info.To say I was underwhelmed by his efforts would be...absolutely true. But bonus points for admitting in his paper that he cited a bogus website, I guess.
We also played a vocabulary game with words from the novel called I Have, Who Has? Even Zoë played. They seemed to like it so we'll have to try it again. This game forced Benjamin to utter the phrase, "I have distraction," which made us all giggle because...he often has distraction...or is distracted...or whatever. But it also made me think of Zoë.
Last night after dinner we went on a family walk—a popsicle walk, no less, so it was extra exciting—and Zoë was chatting while she walked. In truth we were all joking around quite a bit. And then I noticed that Zoë was going to walk directly into a parked car if she didn't start paying attention so I yelped, "Zoë!" and she put on her breaks a little bit but still ended up colliding with the car.
"Oh! I distracted right into that car!" she said, laughing about herself.
"You did 'distract' right into that car," I agreed with her, laughing.
I can't find the stories right now, but I know for a fact she is not my first child to walk into a car (here is a story about Benjamin walking into truck, but I know there are others out there (indeed: here's Rachel's tale and while we're on car/people collisions, here's a link to the time I slid under my friend Wendy's car and the time Zoë got hit by a car while riding her tricycle)). I still think there are other times my kids have walked into parked vehicles though...
Ahaha!
ReplyDeleteAndrew (mine) rode his bike into a parked car
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