the migrants

i celebrated the first day of july with my favority group of kids: the migrant students from the summer migrant program. dawn and steph are together again, so it was easy to get back in with the same group.

there are three new ones and rosisela isn't back this year, which is a shame because i enjoyed talking to her last summer. the usual folks like juan, andres, lucero, misa, the cousins, andy and marlynn were there.

i didn't have plans to do anything this year. my schedule is different at work, but it's still condusive to a morning trip up to GL. but after meeting with steph and david last week, i decided to ask and steph said sure.

since the emphasis is on writing, i wrote a story that included all of them and steph. they had to resuce steph from the evil dr. nickelby (NCLB). so they had a purpose and worked together. they dug it. that pleased me to no end.

we did an exercise where they had to write their own story based on characters dawn and i created and scenarios we also thought up. they took to them like nothing. steph and dawn were surprised at how easily the kids worked.

i topped off my time with them by telling them a story, urged on by juan and andres. it was a winding tale complete with voice variations and hand gestures. they dug it. i dug it.

what a great day. i needed that little get away from reality and visit with the kids. they're a great bunch that make me wish i'd be a teacher... nah, it wouldn't work.