Apples and words, DElicious

Last week I took my class apple picking. This is my granddaughter, Nicole, who lost her ponytails to her own scissors, thus, the bowl cut to repair the damage.

We had fun tromping through the orchard and picking our own bag of apples.

I was thinking how apple picking is metaphorically like writing.

The children had to reach high for their goal, the perfect apple, much like stretching for the perfect word choice or phrase.

We had to twist and turn in order to get the apple to release its stem from the tree. Don't we have to tweak and prod our words?

The children discarded some apples with worm holes and bird bites. Sometimes we have to discard some parts of our stories because they're defective.

Bruised or rotted apples aren't as yummy as unbruised apples. We've all discovered how one rotten word can spoil a story.

As the children cradled their bag of apples like they were holding a baby, I was reminded that all of our stories are our babies, and it is difficult to edit parts that we wish we could keep. Sometimes we get so tired of lugging our babies, that we put them down for a while.

My 4-5 year old students made up and sequenced their own apple recipes that looked like this:

APPLE PIE

FIRST, smash up sixteen apples.

THEN, add about three cups sugar, a whole bunch of milk, and two pink flowers (heard someone else say 'a cup of flour') and two spoons 'cimanons' and stir it sixteen times.

NEXT, cook it in the oven sixteen hours and three minutes.

LAST, eat some and share with your mom.

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See what I mean? Apples, words, delicous!