phone call from teacher

I received one of those phone calls on Wednesday that every parent adores. CJ's teacher called me to tell me two things that he had said/shared that day at school that she thought was just phenominal. One of which was this fantastic story above. She gave each student a piece of bubble gum to chew and the writing prompt was to imagine that they got sucked in to the bubble. So each student wrote a story about the experience of being in the bubble. In my five years of teaching third grade myself, I immediatly noticed that CJ did not do the typical "first, then, next, then, then, then, finally" sequence. I read this story with much more fluidity, as there is action and authentic development of story, not forced. My absolute favorite part, that my heart just melted over, was the ending. How many children's stories to you read that end out of now where and you see the words written "THE END" to signify that the story is over. His ending is so clever, and shows that he's aware of the various endings that he's heard all these years through the millions of stories that we've all read to him! I am personally quite fascinated with story endings in picture books and read alouds, and just so tickled to see CJ writing with such thought. He couldn't wait to read it to me when he got home from school. BTW, he is trying to blow a bubble in the picture:)

Oh we were proud parents!!!