Once Upon a Time….

One of our favorite times of the day at school is chapter reading.  It is intimate.  We feel snuggled together.  Much like being in sleeping bags while camping, with nothing but words to hear, we look forward to that time.

Before we begin chapter reading, we recite Goodnight Moon.  Those timeless words, soothing and rhyming, are a favorite.  Children have nearly memorized the words, and they look forward to hearing them every day.  A favorite is doing it “the silly way”, adding every child’s name into the verse.  “In the great green room there was a telephone and Mary’s red balloon, and a picture of Tommy jumping over the moon”, and so on.  Children are on the edge of their seats!

We can forget how much a child is truly absorbing, if s/he is quiet.  Often something then happens that surprises us, and we are reminded just how important…