Focus Group

On Friday Evan and I decided to go on a field trip to school.  We headed down to the school where I used to teach, The Hill Center.  Our mission while we were there was to visit Mrs. Saunders' class.  She has a class of 3rd and 4th graders and graciously offered her class up to me for an hour.  I brought the childrens' book that I had been working on for years so that I could read it to some kids and get their feedback.

Fortunately, Evan had a great babysitter and enjoyed spending the time with Mrs. Saunders in the back of the classroom.  I read the story and everything worked out great!  The kids were fabulous editors and gave me lots of good points to consider.  It was also good to just have the experience of reading it out loud.  I liked the way it sounded, and I think with a few minor tweaks it will soon be ready to send out to the big wide world.  There's a writing contest deadline at the end of February that I'm shooting for, and then I'll hopefully send it out to publishers shortly thereafter.  We'll see how it goes.

Evan absolutely loved his trip to school!  All of the teachers were so nice to him, and when I visited with some former students Evan discovered that middle schoolers are the funniest people in the whole world.  He loved running up and down the hallways and getting into everything he could find.  After our focus group we headed to Fudruckers for lunch with some of the Hill teachers.  Evan didn't really eat much lunch (big surprise), but he loved his cookie we took to-go in the car.

Here are a few pictures from our adventure at school.  As you can see, it was fun but exhausting!

(Back in a very familiar place...the front of a classroom)

(Evan hangs out while I read.)

  

(He looks pretty at home at school, doesn't he?)

 

(Man, school is tiring!)