Skyping with Explorer Elementary 5th Graders!

On Thursday, I had a Skype class visit with a fantastic group: Karen Feitelberg's fifth graders at Explorer Elementary School in San Diego. Their fabulous librarian, Roxyanne Young, arranged the visit... something that came about because of my Poetry: Spread the Word project!

During the visit, I gave some of the history of Fibs and got to hear them read some great examples they'd written. There were Fibs about all sorts of subjects... and even a Fib about not wanting to write a Fib! We ended by writing a group Fib first draft about pandas (or one panda, I suppose).

We had time for Q+A, too, and the students had some really great questions to ask... from what inspires me to write to how they can reach a bigger audience with their writing.

The hour flew by for me and, I think, for them. And nice words were said on a Facebook thread! What could be better? My big thanks to Roxyanne Young for making it happen and to Karen Feitelberg, who had the whole group ready (and inspired, it sure seemed to me. Inspired about poetry! Color me happy and impressed and more.)

What's so exciting to me is that I'm going to be able to do a lot of these visits thanks to Poetry: Spread the Word. We're in the last two days of the funding period - all pledges now help me give away more visits just like this one - so if you were thinking of checking my project out, now is surely the time!

At their best, visits are educational, inspirational, and aspirational (in both directions, really), and so many of you who read this have become patrons of the arts, enabling these visits with your support. I can't thank you enough... and, I think, there will be a lot of students out there who will thank you, too!