Songwriters

The kids were asking me the words to God Bless America and Tyler asked me if they could write their own, to which I replied of course.  Katie then got her notebook and pencil and began to write the cutest song ever.  She wrote - I love my "bruthr" Tyler he is the best and my mom is "to."  She sounded out all the words and sang it to the tune of God Bless America - so cute.  They are doing "writer's workshop" in their classes and it seems to be great!  They encourage them to write words how they sound and not worry if they are correct or not and it has given them confidence to try to sound out words and enjoy writing.  They have been practicing for their Thanksgiving performance this coming Friday and have been singing, and now trying to write the words to the songs, for weeks.  I am sure they will clam up on performance day, but they are definitely having fun learning new songs with their classes and Tyler especially likes learning about Native Americans and pilgrims! 

This seems like such a slow process for them to really learn to read and write, but they are getting it and I am impressed with the progress they are making.  Katie just came back to me with a new song - wuns (once) ther was an elephant (she told me that one and didn't try to write it) at the wtrprk (waterpark) and he was on the go, he wnt (went) and sa (saw) a tgr (tiger) that was slpy (sleepy) in a tree...  She is writing lots of sight words correctly, but doesn't seem to think other words have vowels apparently - ha.  Tyler isn't writing, but he is helping her think of what the song should be about.  Maybe they will be a famous song-writing duo one day  :)  - we do live in a good city for that to happen!  Uh oh, she is now asking me to read what she wrote and I need to pay better attention while she is sounding it out or I will never get it!