As usual, I’m a little behind, but better late than never, right? We had a blast in the Detroit, Michigan area, including a few new experiences that I’m excited to write about!

We arrived in Novi, Michigan (a suburb outside of Detroit) on Thursday night Oct. 7th for a wonderful home-cooked dinner with family friends. One of the super fun things about driving from coast to coast and all over the United States has been visiting friends. Particularly because I’ll be getting married in a little over a month (!!) and won’t be able to visit as thoroughly with friends and family at the actual wedding.

Anyway, on Friday, we visited 4th graders at our friend Mary Drouillard’s school, Southfield Christian School. This was the first school visit that we did outside in front of the van, which presented different challenges. As in, funny-looking caterpillars and pulling up clumps are inevitably more interesting than us in our green and rainbow wigs. (It’s hard to blame students being distracted at the end of Friday sitting outside on a beautiful day listening to crazy professors talk about geography). However, that said, I think the students still were engaged and enjoyed writing postcards. (As an aside, one of the coolest things about this school was that one of the teachers who teaches photography and graphic design to high schoolers designed individualized classrooms and hallways in the coolest ways I have ever seen. For example, the French teacher’s classroom was designed to look like a French cafe, with two walls that looked like art museum walls. In this case, the pictures are worth a thousand words–look below. And I totally covet the libraries at this school–the elementary one has a porch and a tree fort and the high school one looks like a cozy reading cafe).

On Sunday, we participated in one of the coolest events I’ve been in that I hope spreads to other cities. Focus: Hope is a civil and human rights organization diligently working to bridge the racial divide in southeast Michigan through a food program, career training programs, and an academic support program. The event was a community walk through a neighborhood of Michigan that is being revitalized. I love the model of connecting those in the community with those volunteering in the community. About 150 kids with their families visited the Literacy Lab and received a free book. Each student who came by drew a picture or wrote about their favorite book on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, which we taped to the other pieces to create a book quilt. We were exhausted by the end of the event, but also enthused about the possibilities of connecting with community events like this in the future.
Hmm, photos are not uploading. One of these days, I actually will upload photos to our facebook page and here. Just not tonight.
The last thing we did in Detroit, Michigan was visit a high-needs charter school. We presented to 100 K-2nd graders all at once and then 100 3rd-5th graders all at once! It was a little wild, but actually went pretty well. We’re gearing up because in about a week, we will be presenting a program to 330 5th graders at once. Let the wild rumpus begin. (Or continue, as the case may be).