As school finished up and the loose strings began being tied to head into Summer Vacation, Mira’s class hosted an in-class library, and they invited their families to come and see some of the details of the focus area they have been working on this semester.

Each child was assigned a job in their working library, from Check-in/Check-out clerk to Children’s Librarian.  They had been visiting the local libraries, asking a lot of questions, observing and drawing and writing about what was there, and even making a special trip up to the Andrew Heiskell Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped to experience how a braille library runs.

For her job in the class library, Mira was assigned Story Teller and was given the book Mrs. Wishy-Washy’s Splishy Sploshy to read to the library audience.  She came home one week with her assignment and the little book and asked if she could practice with me and Baby Genevieve, who is actually quite the avid listener these days.  Mira, almost-6 going on almost-30, stood there and boomed out, “Hello, I’m Mira, and I will be reading you the story…” and then proceeded to give a synopsis and go into reading the very simple story with expression.  She particularly loved the part where she got to play the exasperated Mama coming in to find a big mess.  Hmmm.  I have NO idea on whom she modeled THAT performance.  Ahem.

The day of the in-class library came, and all the kindergardeners were over the top excited.  Mothers and fathers and siblings got shuttled into the classroom in two groups to explore the library, check out books, do research on the computers, see a puppet show, and, of course, hear the three Story Tellers tell their stories.

Just as she had done at home, Mira went gracefully to the front of the crowd and did her thing.  We are proud of her, the way she can handle a crowd, but mostly Sean and I are both amazed how her reading is progressing.  She had been in no great hurry to begin reading, but when she finally had the desire, Mira plunged into it.  She informed us that she, “Did not want to read like a robot!”  All along the way, from those first read sentences to now, as she dives into more complex chapter books, she has taken the time to read things with meaning and feeling, to deliver subtext.

Her class also “published” a book of poems and had them bound.  The individual poems were on display for us to read.  So many of them were beautiful and hilarious, too.  You can read Mira’s above.  This, though, was not my personal favorite of hers.  My favorite was this one she wrote the week after Genevieve was born:

My Sister

By: Mira

She is cute

I love her

She sleeps

A lot

She smiles

In her dreams

She is my

Special sister.