Abby Sunshine

 Ah, yes, Ramsey School. What a place! Abby and I were immediately greeted with friendly words as we entered this lovely building. I’ve always admired its look from outside and the architectural style. Inside it was warm and the art on the walls looked super! I taught here a while back and as luck would have it, today we read in two of the classrooms in which I was once the teacher!

 We first entered Room 132, with Ms. Erickson. The students noticed immediately that there was a canine visitor. They had a wonderful, calm presence around Abby. She seemed to feel comfortable in the room. You can see in the photo that she was feeling comfortable enough with Ms. Erickson that she is perhaps begging for a snack! We read A Day With Abby Sunshine and I was impressed with the excellent listening and good questions from the group. One question that came up is “does she bite?” This is so important to talk about. We are fortunate to have a dog with a calm disposition around people, but it is also important for people to know ways to behave around animals. We discussed giving Abby her space, talking at the appropriate volume, and to create a peaceful environment in general; after all, she is an animal. These are a lot of new people for Abby to meet, so the more serene the group can be, the better for everyone. Abby behaved really well!

Thank you Room 132. YOU ARE SENSATIONAL!

We moved along to Room 131, where I used to teach. It was great to see Ms. Lapp and the students in class were so curious and interested. It turned out that all of the students felt comfortable with dogs. This triggered the conversation about being open to new things in life. When I was the age of these kids, I really didn’t care for dogs, in fact, you could say I disliked them. Most of my life was “dogless.” When I grew up and married a dog lover, and then when my own daughter really wanted a dog, I had to re-think this attitude. The experience was so inspiring to me, that I wrote this story! We continued to talk about the inspiration for writing books (mine was this surprise of feeling such happiness with my dog) and then we talked about the steps I took while working on this book with Maren.

What a great discussion! 

 Abby felt relaxed with these awesome Ramsey 2nd graders. She  rested on the floor! Thank you Room 131. YOU ARE SPECTACULAR!

After lunch, Abby and I proceeded across the hall to Room 128 and Mrs. Schultz’s students. This is the other room where I once taught. It looked nice, wood floors!

 Again we were warmly welcomed and by this time I think word had gotten out that we were here. Some of these students had already gotten a glimpse of us in our earlier classroom visits! We gathered on three colorful rugs in the front of the classroom. We read the story. During the story, Abby got distracted by something and began to whine a bit. We decided she must have smelled that they had eaten cupcakes earlier that day, and that perhaps she was interested in finding crumbs! We don’t know for sure, but that sounds good to me! We had a great discussion, and thankfully Mary was there, and willing to cut out the stickers for the students- Thanks, Mary! The students had fun ideas of what to teach Abby when they did a creative writing sheet.

 Abby is standing nicely for Mrs. Schultz, wondering “can I be the classroom dog?”

Thank you, Room 128. YOU ARE MARVELOUS!

Next we dashed to Room 129 and Mrs. Reynolds. The children were already gathered nicely in a group area, ready for the story. Much to my chagrin, the large, foam pages of the book were out of order! During these intense discussions, we look at various pages and they easily get out of order. Luckily Mrs. Reynolds, Nancy and the students visited with me and asked questions while I was sorting pages! The students listened intently when I read the story. I appreciated this good listening. We talked about dogs and Abby’s breed. Abby wondered if this carpet, too, might have some delectible delights, so she sniffed it a bit.

 The students got started on their creative writing sheet, but had to dash off to Spanish Fine Arts–places to go, people to see. These kids are busy, busy, busy. They were courteous as they departed and most gave Abby a special “good-bye” pet.

Thank you, Room 129. YOU ARE FABULOUS!