Happy Holidays

Winter vacation! I love it – and so do my students, I’m certain.

Yesterday was my first official vacation day. You can’t really count weekends when school isn’t in session anyway. Well, to start the vacation off right, I strapped on a backpack chair and hiked out to the bluffs, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This chair is not the kind you’d carry on backpacking trips – it is much too big and bulky for that. It is the kind with shoulder straps and a huge pocket you can fill with an army of books, blankets, and a thermos of hot tea, which is what I did.

Here, take a look:

Hanging on the back of the chair is one of those fabulously soft, fuzzy blankets and in the thermos is a spicy-sweet cinnamon tea. What you don’t see is my journal, a book of poetry, a devotional, a grown-up novel and a children’s book. And which one did I read – the children’s book, of course. You see, as I made my way down the trail to the bluffs, I happened upon a small brush rabbit. He led me through a tunnel of vegetation before he hopped off the trail into a rounded hole in the brush. It made me think of Alice in Wonderland and my thoughts turned toward children’s literature.

As I went further down the trail, the vegetation opened up and I heard a whole community of birds chattering in the blackberry brambles and pyracantha shrubs, gathering their breakfast and sharing a bit of morning gossip – at least it sounded that way to me. I guess working with children rubs off on my imagination - I am grateful to them.

Here are a few of their smiling faces.

I have parent permission to post this picture of course and in future weeks I hope to add more pictures and videos of my “speech stars” hard at work. But for now, this will do – we’re on vacation after-all!

I hope you enjoy the holidays.