Compared to Solano, sometimes I wonder how I ever survived Griffin where I went from third to sixth grades.
Third grade was a trying time for me. I learned all about how to NOT make a gingerbread house.
Fourth grade was a blur.
Fifth grade was actually pretty cool. I had two teachers who came in on different days of the week. The one who taught science and math was obsessed with her son's then AP biology classes so we were dissecting frogs and reconstructing chicken skeletons (chickens were bought from Chinatown and boiled by the cafeteria to get all the meat off). The other teacher was all about reading and the arts so we read stories and drew on the walls. She gave me one of my favorite books, "My Side of the Mountain."
My sixth grade teacher was obsessed with preparing us for junior high and wouldn't let us put our books in the slot under our desk. We had to pretend to walk up to the bookshelves and fake dialing a locker code to get our stuff. Wacky teachers.
It was in sixth grade though that I decided I was going to be a writer. I won the LAUSD handmade books contest for my grade level that year. My story was about a princess named Pumpkinlina. My book was shaped like a pumpkin. How could it not win, I tell ya!
My principal was obsessed with making sure we knew the importance of college. We took field trips to the local community colleges, state colleges and a private university (it was also in sixth grade where I decided which college to go to).
Actually, now that I think about it, elementary school was pretty fun. read more