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

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

How to Add Text and Images

To make contributions, simply go to the Meta section in the margin to the left of this paragraph and use the Register link to create your account. A password will be e-mailed to you. You will have the status of Contributor. Then use Meta to Login. Select Site Admin then use the Posts section and click Add New (here highlighted in red).

Adding Images

To add images to your posts, click on the rectangle with the frame around it that appears immediately to the right of Upload/Insert (here highlighted in red). When the next window appears, click on Select Files. You can then select an image from your computer and the blog software will add it after you’ve selected Insert Into Post. Be sure to click on the Publish button to the right, or, if you’re editing an existing post, the Update Post button.

In the interest of Internet safety, postings from Contributors won’t appear immediately. I will review them first. After I’ve reviewed the posts I will complete the publishing process.

I’m looking forward to lots of great images and stories!

Dale Hubert

One day Travel Teddy was walkin pass the frame. They all looked wonderful except for the Africa picutre. There was lions,pumas and mor dangerouse animals. ” I never wish that I could go in that picture.” said travel teddy to his self. Than the elephant in the Africa picture started to move as he heard what travel teddy said to his self. The frame started to shine and travel teddy dissapeared. When travel teddy got up he was in a rainforest. There was big inscect and all kind of animals that lives in Africa. ” Wow look at all these animals. They must be from Africa but when? And why am I here in middle of rainforest? Am I in Africa or what? Oh… A-F-R-I-C-A… AFRICA!!!!! I have to find the elephant that moved in the frame!” Than he searched for the elephant. He went up the tree, checked the river and checked the cave but there was no sighn of elephant. Than he found a elephant foot print. ” That’s weird. That foot print is glowing… It must be the elephan!” Than he followed the track. As he followed the track he ended up in a cave. Than the cave lighted up and he heard a voice. ” Who dare to come in my private cave!” ” I just followed the glowing foot print!” ” Let me guess, your travel teddy.” ” How did you know?” ” I remeber the voice.” ” Why did you sent me here? What’s the point? I don’t wanna live here!” Elephant said, ” Now you know why you shouldn’t say something about other countries. Now do you think that Africa is bad?” ” No, I think it’s wonderfull!” Than elephant sucked travel teddy with his long nose and sent him back to his own world. ” That was a journey.” Than he loved every frames and countries.

July 11 2009

Dear journal,                               

Today Jody went to her grandma’s house and she brought me with her. To get to her grandma’s house it usally takes 30minutes or 1 hour but because there was so many cars on the street, we were on the car for 1 hour and 30minutes.Me and Jody got sick of being in car so we kind of got car sick.When we got to grandma’s house we were happy we are finished riding on the car. But we didn’t wanted to imagine to go back to our house… Me and Jody was happy to see Jody’s grandparents. Jody have a lot of cousin. Well she have 2 in Canada but she has so many in Korea. She had 4 cousin that was kids so all together there was 6 kids in grandma’s house. They were all boys except for Jody and Angela. Well I think we have to go to bed now so, see you!

July 12 2009

Dear journal,                                             

Today when I woke up me and Jody was the only one that was sleeping. Everybody was woke up and playing nintendo DS. Jody thought it wasn’t fare so when everybody was done playing DS Jody ask her mom if she can play DS now. Her mom said yes so she went to where everybody else was and started to play DS. Well everybody didn’t care because now everybody was playing computer game. Well when they were all busy I was still sleeping. When I woke up I was beside tv. I had no idea how I got there. Today Jody went to swimming pool. I thought she was going to bring me but she said no. She said if I get touched by water and get sink in somewhere deep, it might be a problem so I had to stay home.

July 13 2009

Dear journal,                    

Today is the day that I go back to my house! I get to meet my friends again that is on Jody’s bed. She has a lot of stuffed animals. Well today instead of having fun we kinda learned boring stuff like, where did our name come from? or How to write our name is english and chinies and more. Than we had a test. Today Jody’s grandpa said let’s go by the lake but everybody didn’t wanted to including me because it was raining and we didn’t really felt like going outside today. Well I don’t know why but everybody ended up going by the lake. When Jody came back she told me about what happend. This is what Jody said, ” We were going to the park where the lake was but the park was CLOSED because it was raining and the lake my flow up and make a danger.” Well than when the rain stoped we went to playgroud. Than Jody’s dad came and we drove back home. Because there wern’t any car on the street we got there in 30 minutes. While we were going we watched tv on the car. For the 3 days I had fun.