Baseball, S'mores and Apple pie

As I am sitting here in my garden on a cool Monday morning, enjoying the second half of our 4 day weekend, a hummingbird is flitting about from one flower to the next. The music in the air is not coming from my computer or ipod, but rather the many insects and birds in the surrounding trees. How often do I take the time to enjoy this chorus? It definitely sounds like summer, and that makes me smile.
We went camping this weekend...and we had to take a boat to get there. Once we arrived, it didn't feel like an island - it was more like a plot of land. There were no fire rings and people set up their tents wherever they wanted to or could find space. It was a fun time, my favorite part was when we made s'mores on the grill. Becky's mom sent stuff with Becky to make s'mores because you can't get graham crackers here, and Hershey's chocolate is non-existent...marshmallows are a maybe, but they certainly aren't the Jet Puffed ones. We were pretty happy campers once the s'mores came out. Donna had never had one before. A boy (about 9 years old) was standing and watching us intently as we made our delicious treats. We invited him over and showed him how to make a S'more. We think he liked it. I've decided that S'mores are the new trademark of the USA...forget baseball and apple pie... definitely S'mores.
I'm trying to teach my students how to write by showing and not just telling. This is a difficult concept, and well, they aren't getting it yet. I've started reading this book about writing by a man who taught 5th grade and was struggling to teach his students how to write and also enjoy it. David Somoza is very engaging and I'm loving his ideas. His book is called "Writing to Explore Discovering Adventure in the Research Paper, 3-8". I can't wait to start trying them out, but I feel like I need to finish the book first to get the big picture.
Along those lines, I am feeling more comfortable with teaching than I have since I started...I guess since I have 1 year under my belt now (which is really hard for me to believe). I'm now getting antsy to try new things, experiment with different ideas, make learning better. It's hard work, and it definitely takes a lot of brain power to think through and plan the new stuff that I want to try, and at the same time, not changing everything all at once, but slowly introducing new things in a more natural progression.
We read a story the other week about baseball. I taught my students how to play (they said I knew more than the coach in the book...haha!) Then we watched the Sandlot. It was a good week. =)

"You're killin me Smalls!"
-kait