Poeticality

Our first unit in Language Arts for the year is "Friendship." It's very cute. As a getting-to-know-you warm-up-for-the-unit activity, I made friendship packets for my kids that include things like drawing a picture of you and your friend, a word search, coloring pages etc. etc. etc. One page is for the kids to write a poem about friendship titled "Friendship is..." Here's mine:

Friendship is gooey, sugary, buttery goodness wrapped in chocolate and eaten from the pan.
Friendship is long walks and short walks and no walks at all.
Vision boards, and staring at the wall. Breaking beds and breaking hearts.
Friendship is laughing til you're curled in ball on the ground clutching your sides.
Friendship is love sacs, and love taps, and elementary-esque love notes.
Season tickets, seasonal desserts, and seasoned kissers.
Trips to foreign places, and places around the block.
It's crying from laughing, crying from heartache, crying from sleep deprivation.
It's being stranded in an airport with nothing but a jacket and copy of Harry Potter 7.
Friendship is retail therapy.
Friendship is pretty freaking awesome.

Am I write?

Me: What does kindness have to do with friendship?

Student: Bananas?!

I went to a writing workshop where the presenter said something interesting - go figure.  He pointed out that a lot of times teachers receive notes or pictures from their children, but never write back to them.  So I started to.  My little attitude problem noticed that I had written a note back to a student, so she promptly wrote one to me.  This was on the cover:

The contents were as follows:

"Dear Mr. B,

I do think you are in love how old are you.  and you're sometimes mean could you be a lot eacy on us?  oh on sometimes you're funny when you dance it Funny when you do have a nice day By.

Sweet Mother of Mary*"

I think I'm going to start a class post office so my students can write notes to me and to each other.  This should prove HIGHLY entertaining.

As a teacher, one takes every available opportunity for an ego boost. Example: I made up an activity where the kids had to use a dictionary and thesaurus. Question 5 said, "Complete this sentence using a fun word: "Mr. B is such a (an) _______ teacher." (PS a "fun" word is something other than good, bad, mean, nice, etc.) Words the kids found to describe me:

honorable
excellent
fair
amusing
clever
skillful
kind
glad

I have some interesting aspiring authors in my class. A sampling:

mydogisHappyall the
timeHecachestheBallallthethe
HeisLaZYaNdMydog
WakeupallthetiMe
ButSoMtiMeMydogruNsaway
aNdMYdogRuNsfastaNdI
caNt cotchHiM theNHe
gettierd. INSidtheHouseHe
RuNSarouNdHeBrakes stuf
aNdMYMoMgetsMad

And the future poet laureat of the United States (formatting of text has been preserved from the original.):

I like to Play video games
    and i playing outside
        and Inside
            and play Games

*names have been changed.