So I've been cleaning off horizontal surfaces in my house lately, partly to impress my husband (read: Dave is sick and tired of my messes) and partly because we have painters here fancying up our walls. Anyway, I came across some of Ben's school writing which I put before you now.
THE SILENT STREAM
Soundless starlight gleams
in moonlight and the stream,
is what my memory hears
before I see it in the windows.
Believe things unlike the truth,
like flight in a cloudless sky
that encircles the sun
in the beginning of the day.
Quiet flowing, waiting
and shining waters,
outline elsewhere.
Lest you think he is poetic, keep in mind that the way 3rd graders (last year) write these poems is pretty much like an ad-lib joke. He can't read it without collapsing in a laughing heap on the floor. But I do think it turned out lovely.
At the beginning of this year he had an assignment to learn about his ancestors (which country they came from, etc.) and give an oral presentation about them in class. We know way too much about way too many ancestors so we ended up focusing on a treasured heirloom, but not before we gave the actual assignment a shot. Here is his first attempt:
"My ancestors came from Scandinavia and the British Isles. Many of them came to America because they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of them was the first school teacher in Utah. Her name was Mary Jane Dilworth. Another ancestor was a cowboy in Texas. Another one left England went to New Zealand before coming to America. Eventually they all settled in three states, Arizona, Utah and Idaho. Going to college has been important for most of my ancestors. Several of my great grandparents have taught at college and universities. My mom grew up in Idaho and my dad grew up in Arizona. They met at BYU in Utah. My grandpa told me his dad built a toy machine. On the machine was buttons to make a toy. Some of the types of toys were a horse, a plane or a truck. They would push a button and it would pop out. Soon for some reason when he pressed horse a plane would come out and when he pressed plane a truck would come out then he pressed truck and some spare change came out. Only years later did he realize that someone was in the toy machine and his dad had bought toys and one of the employees was in the toy machine throwing it out and eventually he ran out of toys so he threw his spare change out of the slot and that's the end."
It is good to clean house once in a while to find keepers like these.
