Creative writing and...hurricanes?

So today I learned that (apparently) when the Poinciana trees bloom heavily it means we'll have a bad hurricane season!!!! I did not know this - and sort of wish I didn't now!

The trees are just GORGEOUS this year. Look at this one - it's just down the road from us.

(Have to say the pictures aren't that great because a) it was from the car and b) I was eating a snowball while I was taking it :) )

The whole island is covered with the trees and every single one is in full, magnificent bloom.

I'm going to make sure our shutters are properly fixed and buy some battery lamps this year. :)

And the creative writing part...

Every year I save samples of my kiddies' work and at the end of the year they make a construction paper booklet and glue all their samples into it. They love to re-read all their compositions (which they've completely forgotten about by June) and are very critical of their efforts at the beginning of the year. It's a great way for them to see how much their writing has progressed - and they love to pass the booklets around the room for their friends to read. I also find it reminds them of a lot of our activities throughout the year so I hear plenty of "Oh yeah! I remember that!" and "Oh, I'd forgotten we did that!"

This year we included a descriptive writing piece, 2 poems (a rhyming couplet and a diamante), a diary entry, a Christmas story, a compound sentence practice piece, a re-telling of a story and their favourite blog post from the class blog.

They were great. :)