Slice of Life: Looking at Stars

Slice of Life(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

Yesterday, I wrote about the Greek Temples being created at my son’s preschool, but I should have mentioned that they went on a field trip this week to a planetarium at a local university. I could not go as a chaperon becauseĀ  I was overseeing state reading testing of my students and boy, did I wish I were there with my little five-year-old during that time.

Yesterday, my son started to tell me all about the field trip again — it was very exciting! — and then grabbed some paper and began to draw. He’s been intro drawing everything these days.

When he was done, he proudly showed me his picture, which shows a scene of him and his best friend in the Planetarium, with stars above. I asked what some of the other things were, like the black lines coming down (I thought maybe they were meteors or something) and he said they were the levers that are used to make the stars. After the light show, the kids got to work the controls of the equipment and create stars in the fake sky, and he was trying to recreate that scene.

And there I was, in a room in another town, administering a long test to my students in complete silence. Darn it! I wanted to see the stars!

Peace (in the dark),
Kevin

8 Comments
  1. Missing things your kids do, rots. Teaching is a great profession and allows us to have a lot of time with our kids except for when they are in school. My husband went to most of their field trips and attended most of their conferences because I was teaching.

  2. (This is my fourth try on the anti-spam word. I’m about to give up)
    I know you wanted to be there, but I had the impression with my kids that sometimes it was even cooler for them to be able to tell me about something they knew and I didn’t. And in this case, draw you a picture of something you have never seen. How powerful is that!
    Your description of your son’s tale is delightful. And I love the picture he drew.

    • Thanks
      And sorry the spam word was, what? in hieroglyphics or something? Darn it. But I am glad you stayed with it and left the comment. The drawing was powerful.
      Kevin

  3. Sounds like an awesome field trip… one most of us would have loved to have been on. However, maybe you can take your son back to the planetarium — just the two of you — and have him show it to you through his eyes.

  4. Your son’s trip sounds amazing, and he took a lot away from it. How wonderful if you both go back there together, and let him be the expert about what he learned.

    i love his picture!!

    (I hate state tests — reading, math, or other!)

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