Dear Charlie ...

Dear Charlie,

You amazed me today. Let me tell you the whole story.

We've been learning about all the German fairy tales this month, and today we spent a lot of time talking about Dornröschen, or Sleeping Beauty. After listening to the story at reading time, all you children went to the tables to decorate a picture of Sleeping Beauty's castle and cover it with the great bush of thorns that grew around it while she was sleeping.

Now, stories are stories, and everyone remembers them differently. One of my favorite things to do as a teacher is watch to see what my students take from the stories they hear, and how that comes out in their art work. Here's what you drew and glued on, and what you told me about it:

"There's the princess [black figure, above] trying to get the prince down. She needs a rope to get one [draws purple line down from black figure]. Here's the water all around. There are two flying pigs to guard the castle [drawn left of castle]. There's a key inside here [purple mark on rose in the castle entryway].

About green bush on the right (the great thorns that grew around Sleeping Beauty's castle):"That's the decoration. When you put strings on it, it looks all pretty. The decoration looks good."

Charlie, what a clear imagination you have! As you were telling me all about your drawing, you knew exactly what everything was, and when you wanted to tell me about something that was missing, you started drawing it as you told me about it.

I really enjoyed hearing what you added to the story, like I do hearing about everything you draw and think about. You have such an active mind, full of detail. Most kids do, and that's why I love taking the time to listen to you tell me about your pictures.

Thank you, Charlie. Hope you had a good time at school today, too.

"So, here's a sandbox [orange circle, bottom]. That's the Sonne [sun] and the Sonne dries up all the puddles. There's a frog [brown, lower left]. There's the chocolate stream and they put it in the wrapper. There are the muddy puddles in a drain that drains a lot of stuff. The Sonne is really hot - so hot, you have to eat ice cream." - Charlie, 4yr 2mo