Spider's Great Escape

So it was hot in the house last night AND it rained, so dh opened a window in the laundry room which is under our porch. ie: no rain could come in that window. However, he mistakenly opened the window without a screen. This morning, he looked out the window and saw a cat who looked remarkably like our cat, Spider, trotting across the lawn. Mr. GT called out to him, but the cat ignored him. Hmmm. Not our cat, then. Still suspicious, Mr. GT called once more. Still no response. However, 5 minutes later, there was a meow at the door and here was Spider, begging to come in. He's not normally an outdoor cat, so this was a great adventure for him.

I heard the whole story before the kids got up and it immediately struck me as a perfect chance to get them writing! As soon as everyone was out of bed, I relayed the tale and assigned them an essay, from Spider's perspective, on his adventure. The only guidelines were that it had to begin with him going out the laundry room window and contain these words near the end: "I was trotting across the lawn, when suddenly I heard Dad call my name. I ignored him. But then I remembered: the love, my food, Pepper's bed. And I went to the door and said, 'Meow.'"

As we edit them, I'll be typing them up and posting them here. So far, they're really cute.

Since he won't be doing any editing (at 5, getting a creative story onto paper at all is an accomplishment) here is Banana Boy's. He dictated his story to me and I wrote it down. He needed a little help getting started and was greatly assisted by the prop of Spider joining us for the writing session. He had Spider whisper to him what had happened.

Spider jumped out the window. He went on a trip. He went under the laundry hanger thing. He went in the front yard. He ate kitten chow. He saw his dad. He ignored his dad. He went in the forest. A bunny rabbit was there. He sniffed the bunny rabbit. The bunny hopped away and Spider tried to catch the bunny rabbit. He wanted to go home so he went home. He snuggled his dad and his Banana Boy.