Throwback Thursday

30 April 2014Georgia P, Mackenzie ‘16

Boogying around the room to the Gummy Bear Song before going outside to play, was how I spent last Thursday afternoon. Ms. Hedquist’s genre unit, Children’s Literature (aka Kidlit) takes a field trip every Thursday to Bench Elementary School. There they get to see their “little buddies”. As soon as the Brentwood Grade 10s arrived at the school, I saw the excitement fill the eyes of the kindergartners. Warm, welcoming hugs and bright white smiles filled the room with a joy impossible to put into words. Instead of sitting down and taking notes about keyhole essays or semicolons, the Brentonians felt as though they were back in elementary school, dancing around without a care in the world. Hyped up from jumping and twirling, everybody rushed outside for the “Kindergarten run”. Everyone seemed to keep up with each other with the exception of James D, Ellis ’16 (Captain of the Colts Rugby team) who struggled a bit, but in the end he finished off the run. Time on the playground was the treat after five quick laps. It seemed as though the little buddies were so fast because they knew the playground was to come. As the big buddies pushed their little buddies on swings and played grounders with them, I couldn’t help but overhear the chatter about books. Every student in the Kidlit class will, over the next two weeks, write a children’s story to read to the kindergarten class and they were doing their market research. They were getting a lot of feedback from the kindergarteners on things such as, character names, personalities, and subjects. What a great way to find out what to write: just ask the five year old, your audience. Maybe Brentwood has a few future children’s book writers? Although the fun had to come to an end and the buddies said their goodbyes, they can only be sad until next Thursday, when they get to do it all over again. Once again, they’ll be thrown back to kindergarten. Photos and article by Georgia P, Mackenzie ‘16

Where Students Choose To Be