Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Wrapping up the year

I just finished my last school visit of the year.

In 2007, I visited 31 schools.

I spoke to approximately 4500 students.

I gave 109 presentations.

I conducted 48 writing workshops.

I said the Pledge of Allegiance 27 times.

While brainstorming ways to show a messy room, I heard "dirty underwear" 73 times.

While brainstorming ways to show that someone feels sick, I heard fantastic barfing noises 84 times.

I waited in line behind 93 school buses.

I drank 17 teeny weeny cartons of milk.

I saw 18,432 chicken nuggets (but didn't eat 1.)

And I loved every minute of every day spent in a school.


Posing with students for the local newspaper at my last school presentation:


Here we are pretending to have a casual conversation about one of my books, as instructed by the photographer. In reality, I had opened the book to a random page so we could pretend to talk about it. On the page was a post-it note that said, "Chicken Hair." (It's a long story, but trust me, this is true). The kids were delighted to be talking about chicken hair.

3 comments:

Sarah Miller said...

Did you hear that? It's the sound of my jaw dropping. You are amazing.

Kerry Madden-Lunsford said...

I love the wrap-up of pictures and students and young writers! Your blog is an inspiration, Barbara. How lucky those kids are to have you too. I wish you a restful and peaceful Christmas with lots of new story ideas floating around in the ether.

Anonymous said...

Hello Barbara! This is Olivia from your Dale Street Workshop in Mr.White's class. Thank you for coming!