This morning I had the pleasure of going to my daughter’s school to watch her (and her class) read non-fiction stories they wrote. While I couldn’t abide by my goal of wearing a dress and looking like an adult, I did manage to shower and keep the baby quiet. For first graders, the stories were actually very interesting. They stated facts about their topic that they had researched, drew illustrations, wrote up a table of contents as well as a dedication page. Hell, in first grade my teacher was desperately trying to get half the class to stop eating crayons.

Most of the boys and one girl picked dinosaurs to write about. There were a few dog stories, two farm stories (one animal, one orchard), a few sports such as football or hockey. And there was my daughter, who wrote about fishing. Okay… She’s been fishing once, almost 4 years ago. Maybe it’s a hint to take her again?

One thing I did notice was that my daughter is not afraid of speaking in front of crowds/strangers, or into a microphone. She’s had a camera or microphone in her face since birth, and even knows how to hook up XLR cables to a mixer board, so I’m hardly surprised. During the ‘refreshment break’ halfway through the presentation, she took her digital camera (she wouldn’t be the offspring of two geeks if she didn’t own one…) and started snapping pictures of her friends and teaching them to pose while throwing gang signs. Since she was up after the break, she decided to go check out the mic rig and figure out how close she needed to be in order for EVERYONE to hear her. She did an amazing job with her story and reading to the audience, I am so very proud of this human being that is blooming in front of me.

My kid rocks.

[tags]fishing, kids stories, school presentation[/tags]