Saturday Shenanigans

Post 8 of 20

November 18, 2014Katerina ManousakisUncategorized

As you all may remember, (people living in DC are hardly likely to forget), it snowed last Thursday. Everything was shut down, including the Community Center where we run the workshop. The bus unfortunately, didn’t run, so when I wrote that I was stranded in my last post that was the literal truth. I don’t drive, and couldn’t get around. There isn’t anything remarkable about that, really, except that I live just off Connecticut Avenue, which is, 1) a major artery in and out of DC, and 2) a snow route. Thus it is unacceptable that the route was not sufficiently clean so buses could run. Upside: When my other work called me to come in I was able to say absolutely not. Anyhoo, I’ll step down from my soap box now. I had to extend the workshops another week so that they could be made up. Thursday’s sessions extended by a week, but Friday’s sessions were a bit more difficult.

My Friday student wasn’t able to attend class three a couple of weeks ago. In order to make up the classes, I had to get a little bit creative. Collectively, and by that I mean parent and teacher, we decided that I would come to the house and teach the last two classes over two hours on Saturday February 15th. It worked out surprisingly well. And we managed to finish the srory. I was a bit surprised because my student asked me if I’d be willing to type the story out for her. Because, “I can’t really read grown up writing all that well.” I hope that wasn’t a comment on my penmanship, otherwise Aquinas Montessori, I think you better give my parents their money back. So, just as I agreed to hand write the story for her, I also agreed to type it out for her as well. I think you all will agree that I’d better not make a habit of either writing long hand or typing out the story. But just this once…what’s the harm?

The story is an amazing tale of the power of the human spirit and the triumph of man against his greedier instincts. It’s not really all that highbrow, but I’m the grown up and can attach a deeper meaning if I want to. If my students give me their permission, maybe I’ll post the stories to the blog. Right, next up, we are back in session with the thursdays, hijinks and hilarity abound in our next inkreadable installment. Stay tuned.

Source:: Inkreadablekids

This article was written by Tina

"Tina made it fun and helped me to come up with lots of ideas. She made me want to write more!! I love the book I wrote and will keep it in a super, safe place." “This class is very fun. We do fun writing prompts. I also really liked my writing prompt. It was “A genie gives you three wishes. What do you wish for and why?” I want to do this class again!” “This was Inkreadable. Once my pencil touched the paper, I couldn’t stop writing. And once I was I was done, I wanted to write more.” “I liked that we got to write our own stories, but we helped each other and read Ms. Tina’s story too.”

The Students

“Tina inspired my daughter to write more and helped her to gradually come to understand the formal structure of a story. My husband and I really appreciated both of these aspects, as writing, like any activity for young children, requires nurturing that is a combination of solid guidance and age-appropriate motivation to sustain interest! We highly recommend Inkreadable Kids, and will return for another session!” “My daughter learned a lot from Tina about the process of creative writing, and most importantly, had fun doing it!” “My daughter enjoyed the writing class very much. It motivated her to create stories in a non-judgmental, safe atmosphere. She loved it! Tina told her the first class, “Words are magic” and she was hooked.”

The Parents

I got to read it to my parents. I got my own book to keep forever. I got to feel what it was like in the story. I think I would recommend this writing class because it’s fun. You get to learn about the beginning, rising action, the climax, the descending action and the end. It is a great class, interesting and helpful on how to organize a story. I had fun with writing for my story, and thinking up a story to make. I liked learning about the climax. I think other kids should come!

The Students

When I announced to my boys that I registered them for creative writing workshops, they were not so excited. But once they started, they were very happy and found the classes very interesting and exciting. I am really happy to see how Tina made the classes interesting, and that I did not have to drag them to come to class.

The Parents