My Travel Teddy

These students are the second class participating in the traveling teddy exchange.

They have increased their writing skills while tending to other children’s bears and keeping journals.

These students are showing off their new bears before sending them out to their travels

This monument below shows the eqautor in Ecuador. My Travel Teddy moved from the northern to the southern hemisphere in two steps!

These street entertainers from Argentina met My Travel Teddy in Quito, Ecuador.

This very attractive marine iguana from the Galapagos came a little closer to see My Travel Teddy.

In what has to be one of the greatest surprises of my teaching career, I will be returning to the special education classroom.

It’s an exciting opportunity. I’ve met some of the students I’ll have next year, but there will be some changes, so it’s hard to make plans this far in advance. I have some fun ideas in mind, though.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying team-teaching the best grade 3 & 4 students imaginable.

By Emily and Nana Noble

“Nana, I really like this white dress. Can I try it on?”

“Sure, honey. I’d love to see what you look like in it.”

Later on Emily and her Nana finished up their shopping and were so exhausted they decided to go to the Foodcourt.

“Ahhh, this is much better.” Sighs Emily’s Nana as she sits down with her food, and starts looking in her purse for her hand sanitizer.

“Nana, could I have Lola? I put her in your purse.”

“Lola? What are you talking about?……….Oh, do you mean this?” Says Nana as she holds up the picture of Lola.

“Yes. Thank-you, Nana.” Emily cries with joy as she grabs Lola and gives her a ‘bear’ hug.

The two kindred spirits, Emily and her Nana, enjoy the rest of their lunch together. Emily tells the story of how she made Lola and left her in Nana’s purse. They were so caught up talking that when they got up to leave they left Lola behind.

Lola was left on the table, staring straight up at the ceiling.

“Where did they go?” Lola wonders.  “Oh darn, I wish I was a real stuffed bear because then I wouldn’t be so barely noticeable. Now what will happen to me?” With tears in her eyes she says, “Someone help me, please!”

With that a flash of light and a bit of sparkle appeared, and out of it walked a little green pixie.

“Do you want to be a real stuffed bear?” She asks Lola.

“Yes but I can’t, can’t I ?”

“While you wait at this table you could do a lot of good deeds and then good things will happen to you.”

“But, I am just a piece of paper. I could never do any good deeds.”

“Just wait and you’ll see.” The pixie disappears as quickly as it came.

Lola lays there trembling in fright. Just then a family sits at the table. Their little baby boy cries because he sad.

“Look at this.” Says his mother as she picks up Lola. “It’s a picture of a bear. It looks like a little girl bear.” The  baby boy giggles in delight. Now that he is happy his mother picks him up and the family moves on.

“Oh, I feel so good knowing that I could make that baby smile.”

“I’ll wait over here for you.” A man says to his wife as he sits at Lola’s table. Looking around and tapping his fingers he quickly gets impatient. Then he sees Lola. Picking her up, and turning her over, he pulls a pen out of his pocket and starts doodling on the back of her. When his wife comes he gets up to go and leaves Lola there.

“Well, that was close. I thought maybe he’d throw me in the garbage. At least, I gave him something to do.”

Lola is no longer trembling and feels pretty good about helping people. So when an elderly lady sat down Lola felt ready for the challenge. And, had no idea what was in store for her. The elderly lady slowly eats her food and slowly drinks her drink. Then carefully she picks up Lola, and dabs her face with the back of Lola.

“Yuck. Stop doing that!” cries out Lola. Immediately the little old lady stops, gets up and puts all her leftovers in the garbage can. Lola was caught in the middle of it and down she went.

 “Yuck, I’m in the garbage. But, I am not garbage. I let that man write on me. Because of me that little baby boy giggled. And just because someone wiped their face with me doesn’t mean I’m garbage. Really, I was just helping people. And the pixie said that good things would happen to me if I helped people. I wonder if that is really true because look at where I am now.”

Just at that time Emily runs back to the table. She looks at the table and in all the garbage cans.

“Lola, where are you?” Then Emily saw the sparkle in Lola’s eyes and knew that this was no ordinary piece of paper but her Travel Teddy, Lola. She picks Lola up, straightens her out, and gives her a big hug, “Lola, just so you won’t be barely noticeable anymore I am going to make you into a stuffed bear.”

As Lola got carried off by Emily, she saw the pixie wink her eye at her.

Travel Teddy and his family went to a beach. It was a sunny day and it was a perfect day for swimming. Travel Teddy jumped in to the ocean and came back out. He said ” The water is to cold, maybe I could go in the water next time.” He just walked on the sand and saw many creatures. He found a cave.” This cave look very cool~!” Than he went in. The soon as he went in the door of the cave got covered and Travel Teddy was scared. He just went deeper and