Wednesday, September 29, 2010

LitWits Launched Today!

Hello All!
Just wanted to tell you that we held our first LitWits Workshop today, jumping into The Secret Garden with both feet and had such a fantastic time! Some of my favorite parts?
  • Hearing the kids express obvious delight over the book and it's characters; their enjoyment of Dickon's gregarious personality and love of animals, their empathy for sour, unhappy Mary Lennox when she first comes to England from India.
  • Seeing them make connections between the struggles and events of the author's life and those she created for her characters. So that's where stories come from!
  • Watching each one close their eyes tight to better imagine themselves cold, tired and lonely in a horsedrawn carriage as we listened to an mp3 of the wind howling over the Yorkshire moor.
  • All of us straining to understand the broad dialect of an elderly Yorkshire woman as she described how to make brown bread (thank you BBC sound files!)
  • Being caught up in the moment of discovery as collages were assembled from my sister's old English Home magazines and my mom's Better Homes and Gardens. Each child seemed to find just the right images to capture the essence of the book--so fun!
  • Watching the kids just try to keep their hands out of the bucket of dirt reserved for tomorrow's planting project. Why is a trowel in a big copper bin of earth so tempting? It even smells tempting!
  • English Breakfast tea and crumpets with orange marmelade? Are you kidding me?

Anyway, just wanted to share. I feel so grateful to be part of this!

Becky

www.litwitsworkshops.com

3 comments:

laura said...

sounds AMAZING!!!!

Blessed said...

Oh, I wish I could be in your classes!!! Thank you so much for all this amazing fun. I loved hearing them describe what they did--and they thought the tea was very special.

I was reading one of the last chapters to the girls tonight, and they mentioned bread with clotted cream. Sara Crompton knows where you can get some locally! : )

McNabb Clan said...

sounds SO fun! i love the creativity and thought that you gals put into these hands-on, full-sensory activities! love you Beck!!