My twin girls' (Mara & Sylvia) school is having a story writing contest. The theme for the kindergarten story is supposed to be "A Squirrel in Winter." Their stories are attached.
When Mara finished her story, I reread the assignment sheet to her. Some of the questions it asked were "Where does the squirrel live? What does it eat?" She added the last sentence of the story after that.
Mara:
Mara the Squirrel was having a nice birthday party when the doorbell rang. It was her sister, Sylvia. Sylvia came inside and sat down for a birthday party. She was the first one to be coming for the birthday party. Then the doorbell rang again, and Squirrel welcomed Momma in, because she was the second one. Then the doorbell rang again. It was Lisa, and Squirrel gave her lots of hugs and kisses because she loved her so much and she missed her. The last person who came in—they heard the doorbell ring, and it surely was Dada. They had a nice birthday party after all.
And Mara the Squirrel lives in Sandpoint and eats nuts.
[Notes: Lisa is a former preschool teacher and much loved. Sandpoint is Sandpoint, ID where their grandmother had a cabin.]
Sylvia:
The squirrel lived in a tree and she ate nuts and she buried nuts in the snow. One day, she was out looking for them and she could not find them because the man had taken them away.
The squirrel bumped into a snowman and the squirrel was so scared she ran away. The snowman started to grow. It was a person building the snowman. The person got the squirrel to go back there and help to put it back together. The snowman got built and didn’t get bonked again.
The man had taken the nuts away because he wanted the squirrel to find him. The squirrel found him and brought the nuts home. When the squirrel brought the nuts home, she was so tired she wanted to go to bed but she was hungry too and so she went to bed and she ate the nuts when she got so hungry.
She went to sleep. Then she went outside again. And she saw the snowman was melting. It was melting because the sun was up and it was spring.