my rootin' tootin' afternoon

There's a fabulous website for K-3 kids called Starfall. They have an animated interactive story for each phonics sound, and at the end of each story, a voice asks "Did you like this book?" Three faces appear so that you can choose your response, and if you roll your mouse over them, the voice tells you what each one means: happy ("yes"), sad (" no"), in-between ("kind of").

So today I read Barnyard Dance (by Sandra Boynton - I *heart* her books!), in preparation for our upcoming farm field trip. When I finished, my kids clapped their appreciation. And one little voice from the back said, "Did you like this book? Kind of!" In the exact same voice as the Starfall website. Uncanny how well they pay attention to that. If only they listened to me that well.

The class demanded an encore reading of Barnyard Dance, and I obliged them, as I often do. The story is written in a wonderful rhythm that sounds like a square dance caller. That, of course, prompted me to do an impromptu square dancing lesson. With first graders who are of the collective opinion that the opposite sex is icky. There was a chorus of "ewwwwww"s, but some of them actually got into it. We practiced bowing and curtsying, we learned how to promenade and how to do-si-do. That's about the extent of my square dancing knowledge.

Picture it. A bunch of inner-city six year-old Hispanic kids square dancing. It's like my own private "Mad Hot Ballroom." :)