Dear Lauren,

First of all I wanted to say thank you for all the sweet comments on my post yesterday.  

I never imagined I could find people through writing a blog that would pray for me and encourage me.  So thank you!   It is very appreciated! 

sweater: Old Navy    jeans: Kohls    boots: dsw    tree necklace: handmade

I am becoming a fan of layering my clothes.  Thanks yet again to pinterest for inspiring me to try new things when it comes to my wardrobe.  

Dear Lauren, 

Thank you for your sweet message last night.  I'm sorry you were feeling sad so I figured I'd write something to cheer you up.  You seemed to really enjoy this story from school last week, so I thought maybe you should hear it again! 

It came to my attention by one of the assistants that works in my room that some of my kids were braking off the tops of pencils and collecting the little piece of lead that would brake off.  I made a general announcement before lunch that if anyone was doing this they should stop.  We talked about how it is wasteful, distracting and not okay to break/touch things that are not yours.  I told them that starting tomorrow I don't want to see anyone collecting these.  And that anyone that had any needed to throw them away. 

 Then I walked my class to lunch. 

After seeing the complete panic that some of my kids were in as they ran around whispering to each other about what I said, I realized it was a bigger issue then I thought.  I stopped a student to ask what they were talking about.  They said so seriously, as if I would know what they mean, 

"We're talking about our pinties and what we are going to do with all of them." 

I find out that pinties is their made up word for these little pencil points or lead that they were collecting.  They told me that they are all giving them to one of the students in my class.  

I went back to my classroom, looked in her desk and this is what I saw: 

 hundreds of "pinties" 

I made my way to a few more students' desks who also had little collections of "pinties".  

When my class came back from lunch, realizing this was a bigger deal than I thought, I wanted to reiterate that students needed to get rid of their little collections and may not continue to break off pencil points to collect. 

I used the term "pencil points" or "pencil tips" a few times.  

A student of mine raised his hand and in all seriousness said, 

"Mrs. Vale - they are called pinties." 

To which my response was, "No, they are called lead. and you need to stop collecting them." 

I talked to a few of the third grade teachers who soon found out that some of their kids were collecting them too, giving them to a student in my class.  Apparently some were using it like money to buy things from each other too.  

Although I think it was and is really funny, I for some reason can't even get myself to say the word "pinties." 

I hope that story made you smile!

I love you and miss you so much Lauren! 

Love,

Linking up to:
Transatlantic blonde   Rolled up Pretty
Captivated by Grace
Momma go Round    The Letter 4