Will You Be My Valentine?

"I love you Lucy. I love you so much. I made a snow woman."

Sariah's best friend Lucy, moved to Utah last summer. Sariah still thinks of Lucy often and decided to write her a valentine the other day. I've mentioned this before, but I just love it when kids first learn to write. I remember Nathan's kindergarten teacher , Ms. Fisher, showing us Nathan's first writing and explaining how children start out experimenting with writing. Kids will sometimes just write the first sound in the word and other times they will write all of the consonant sounds for the word down. Sariah has done both of these things in her letter. If she encounters a sound other than long or short vowels, she will often ask me what letters make that sound (i.e. the "oo" sound in you, as above. I didn't know what she was spelling so I just told her "o o").

Sariah drew pictures on the bottom of Lucy with her long hair and herself with her shorter hair. She always draws herself with a belly button.

Speaking of Lucy, Sariah and I found a book at the library on Wednesday that reminded us of her. It is called "Gossie and Gertie" by Olivier Dunrea. These two little goslings are best friends. Gertie always follows Gossie around until Gertie eventually decides that she will do her own thing. Gossie is thrown off by this and keeps yelling at Gertie "Follow me!" Finally Gossie gives in and follows Gertie instead, straight to their bowl of food, where it is reiterated that they are best friends. It's a sweet little book that reminded me of Sariah and Lucy's friendship. It's comical to think back to there squabbles and then, conversely, their hugs.