John Barry Model Essays

***Updates made.  Please read.***

Please access the link below to READ the packet of model essays.   We will be working with them in class. Print only if you want to.

John Barry Barry Bo Berry Banana Bama Bo Berry

xoxo

Reminder:  Tomorrow at lunch in Room 300, Mrs. Kwayana will be hosting a meeting to discuss the recent events toward her.  Join in if interested.

And also, I just read this online from a favorite blog of mine.  It's an excerpt from a letter a mom gives to her son the night before 3rd grade, but I think it's a letter that every parent should give their kid.  It also says some of things I would want to say to you if you were my children too.  Read and ruminate.

"We do not care if you are the smartest or fastest or coolest or funniest. There will be lots of contests at school, and we don’t care if you win a single one of them. We don’t care if you get straight As. We don’t care if the girls think you’re cute or whether you’re picked first or last for kickball at recess. We don’t care if you are your teacher’s favorite or not. We don’t care if you have the best clothes or most Pokemon cards or coolest gadgets. We just don’t care.

We don’t send you to school to become the best at anything at all. We already love you as much as we possibly could. You do not have to earn our love or pride and you can’t lose it. That’s done.

We send you to school to practice being brave and kind.

Kind people are brave people. Brave is not a feeling that you should wait for. It is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the crowd.

Trust me, baby, it is. It is more important.

Don’t try to be the best this year, honey.

Just be grateful and kind and brave. That’s all you ever need to be.

Take care of those classmates of yours, and your teacher, too. You Belong to Each Other. You are one lucky boy . . . with all of these new gifts to unwrap this year.

I love you so much that my heart might explode.

Enjoy and cherish your gifts.

And thank you for being my favorite gift of all time.

Love,
Mama"