Wow. We have one week left! I can’t believe how quickly five weeks have passed. Thankfully I have a fiancée waiting in Seattle for me and a wedding in less than a month (!), or I’d feel a little more bittersweet. Granted, my mom and I see this trip as the beginning of our Literacy Lab adventure, but there has been something incredibly special about having the time to take a road trip across the country with my mother before I get married. Some people have told us that they would have trouble driving that distance in that length of time with their mother, but truth be told, we’ve had a blast. (The only occasional points of tension have occurred while driving in major cities trying to follow our phone GPS and in re-organizing the Lit Lab, but even those have been few and far between).

But enough of waxing nostalgic. When last I left you on the blog, we had just arrived at Rockville, Maryland. Last Sunday, we left New Jersey after a major re-packing and unloading of a ton of stuff on our friend Jane Cardwell’s garage. The reason for the unloading is that we had to fit 3 people in the backseat (5 people total!) for the drive from Rockville, Maryland to Winchester, VA. To those of you naysayers and doubters that we would be able to clear enough space, I’ll let you know that we achieved it quite well, thanks to having a lovely garage space where to store all the stuff.

Monday morning, we went to Arcola Elementary School in Silver Springs, Maryland. My aunt works in a media center and had connected us to the awesome librarian, Marty Fry. The third, fourth, and fifth grades (from about 75-100 kids at once) came to the school library and we presented our geography lesson. We realized that with larger groups, handing out books is the most challenging part because (a) there is not much time available to hand out books, (b) you have to figure out what to do with the kids who are waiting to pick out books. That’s why having students write postcards at the end has worked out so well.

Right after school ended, we drove with 2 more people in tow, to Winchester, Virginia. What we had to do that night was prepare for a school assembly of 300 fifth graders the next day. Those of you who know how my mom and I operate know that we are night owls. We do a lot of thinking and planning in our heads, but the night before a program, are usually up fairly late doing the last-minute cutting and pasting. This time was no exception. Because there were going to be 300 students at once (and since we had 3 helper bees along for the ride!), we turned the book we’ve been reading aloud into a play.

The assembly was fun! A little rough around the edges at times, but the students responded well, especially to the sitting statues game we play. The book giveaway time was when we were incredibly thankful to have friends and teachers there to help us. Students left in groups of 30 at a time to tables set up outside of the auditorium. While they were choosing books, I told a story I had learned in a storytelling class called “The Oonka Loonka Fish.” Although I had told the story before, I had never done so to such a large crowd. On the spot, I realized that I could get input from students at points throughout the story, which actually worked really well. It made me realize the power of anticipation and mystery. When people know that they might have a chance to participate and don’t know what is going to happen, they tend to be on the edge of their seats more. Or at least that is what I observed during the story.

After Winchester on Tuesday (where we left 2 of our friends, Debbie and Rachel), we drove to Richmond to visit Jane’s daughter. We bopped around Richmond on Wednesday, and then drove to Wilson, North Carolina where we met our close friend, Claire. She had set-up a visit to an elementary school for Thursday, but didn’t know the details on Wednesday night. On Thursday, when we called, it turned out the kids were having picture day and so we moved our visit to Monday (tomorrow). This left a day free for thrift store scavenging, which is, as you can tell, one of our favorite past-times. On Friday morning, we visited a local preschool. I love the elementary grades, but it’s lovely to visit preschoolers because they are so instantly excited and affectionate. A good instant gratification fix.

Tomorrow begins our last week. It’s hard to believe that all we have left in our massive road trip is 3 more programs: a visit to a school tomorrow in Wilson, NC; a visit to a school in Henderson County, NC on Tuesday; and a visit to an Orlando school on Thursday. How the time has flown!