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VISIT KIMBERLY'S THINK TANK!
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CHILDREN'S STORIES
Stories written by some of the children attending Kimberly P. Johnson's Writing Workshops.

Two Buckets
by Matthew Little

Two buckets. One for me and one for you. I have my bucket with me. I like it the most. It is blue. Benhur blue. Who is Benhur? Benhur is a great hero.

I take my blue one to the backyard. We collect lots of flowers, worms and rocks. He goes with me to the beach. He helps me build a huge castle and a battle zone too.

We went to pick blue-berries, black-berries and apples. My dear blue bucket is always a great helper. He stays home, he does not go to school. I teach him counting.

I fill him up with my treasure toys, we share our toys peacefully and happily. He can make music when he wants to.

And he is my hat when I am playing in the rain. And how is your bucket? If I have two buckets. Will I have double fun?

I wish I could meet the president. I want him to meet my super bucket too!!

Where is the Bus Going??
by Paul Little

We were 3rd graders at Mrs. West's class. What we loved the best was math and field trips. We sing and dance while we memorize our multiplication tables. Then that big day came as promised, a field trip. Where are we going? Where is the bus going? To the zoo, to the beach, to an island, to the museum, to the mountains, to the White House or to the moon?

Mrs. West decided to visit the Life and Science Museum. So we headed north to Durham. Where is the bus going? We prayed that the bus driver knew the way. Two hours in the bus how bored. David yawned, Sean was leaning on David. Tony was reading. James was snoring. Erin and Casey were quietly doing word puzzles. Oh, how boring!! I sighed.

By the window I saw a dense dark cloud forming. Oh NO!!! A tornado!! Watch out!!! Suddenly everything turned dark. Heavy rain, big hail and thunder and lightning all appeared together

Who was stirring us? Who was roaring? Everyone woke up. We were screaming, yelling and crying. Everyone was panicking. I just closed my eyes tight.

The bus was twisting, up, up, up, to the sky and then suddenly it stopped. Why? Where was the bus going? Where were we? In heaven or at Mars?

I opened my eyes, oh, where was the bus going? We just passed the railroad crossing. The rain was still falling. Mrs. West was calling us to wake up and be ready. Where is the bus going? Oh yes, tot he Life and Science Museum. Of course.

The 19th Diamond
by Emma Htun

An old witch walked up the creaky steps to her little cottage. She sat down painfully in a chair. Then she called "Diamond, Diamond come here." A snow white cat appeared at her feet and looked at her faithfully. "Diamond," the witch began, "You have been faithful and loyal to me all these years, but now we must part. The voice talked to me last night, it is time for my journey." "I must go tomorrow. You have to go tonight." read the whole story

THE HOUSE ON 99TH AVENUE
by Kimberly Grimes

I, Brittany, (11 years) looked out the window at the white moving van on my driveway. We were getting ready to move to Annadale, Virginia. My little brother, Johnny, (6 years) was sitting on a crate, holding his stuffed dog, Spike, and laughing so hard at some cartoons on TV that tears rolled down his cheeks. I don't understand how a cute, fluffy, stuffed dog would be named Spike. I knew very well that I should leave him alone about it. Yet, I didn't have anything else to do, so I went over to Johnny and said, "Have you considered renaming the dog?"
"No. It is mine, and I can do what I want with it."
"Well, you know what grandma said. She told mom it was for you to enjoy, but at least she wanted you to give it a decent name." read the whole story

FINISH THE STORY!
Original beginning to the "Mystery Story" written by Kimberly P. Johnson and finished by students from Wilton Elementary School in Franklinton, NC.

I loved the new house that we moved into. It was huge and roomy. I especially loved my bedroom. It had a ceiling as high as the sky and a floor as smooth as glass. The only thing that I didn't like about my bedroom was the wallpaper; it was a yucky orange and green color. It reminded me of the pants that a clown might wear. My mom said that she was too busy fixing up the rest of the house to change the color. But she offered me a deal that I couldn't refuse. "Go ahead and take all of the wallpaper down, then it will make it easier for me to redo your room," my mom coaxed. "Besides, if you do a good job you might earn some extra money."

After gathering all of the necessary materials, I immediately went to work ripping down the hideous wallpaper. I thought to myself, "What a fantastic way to get rid of this ugly wallpaper AND earn some extra bucks!!"

As I started removing the paper in the corner of my room, I began to feel an eerie and cold draft. It felt as if someone had just blown their icy breath on the back of my neck. I continued ripping the paper from the wall. That's when I saw something strange. It looked like the top of a door. I quickly removed the rest of the torn paper and saw that it WAS a door. I put my ear quietly against it. A faint sound came from the other side. Before I could decide what I needed to do, the door slowly creaked open; that's when I saw …

Read how the children ended the story!
Kelly | Lindsay | Kaitlyn

Kelly
A small black and brown object making a helpless whimpering sound. It slowly slid closer and closer to me but it was still hidden under a blanket of dim light. My heart was beating against my chest as the creature uncovered himself in the bright light.

When it was all the way out of the patch of darkness, I realized it was a puppy. I was so excited I didn't know what to do. Luckily, my mom stepped into the room and steered my eyes away from the adorable dog. She turned her head toward mine and with a mouthful of words ready to come out she froze. Out of all the words in her mouth the only ones that came out were how did he get here.
It took forever to explain "how he got there" to my mom. It seemed as though I was talking to her in another language. All she could say was "how?" After about an hour of repeating the same thing a million times my mom understood. We decided to put the dog on a chain outside with a lost and found sign above him.

Days passed and nobody called so we decided to keep him. Since we found him in such a mysterious way we decided to call him Mystery. The door that we found him behind became his bedroom. I'll never forget when we found Mystery behind that mysterious door.

Lindsay
A humongous black and brown hairy scared dog. It was so wet and slimy that I was horrified even to touch him. Suddenly, I screamed for my mom. A few minutes later she got upstairs. We walked further back and it lead us to a wild jungle with lots of wild animals. Some of the animals were panther, bobcat, jaguar, cheetah, and a tiger. A Tiger OH-NO. He chased my mom and I around the jungle then we finally found the door and we leaped inside the room and slammed the door.
A few seconds later my mom said, "Honey never open that door again!!"

Kaitlyn
A young girl with long, curly, brown hair that glistened in the sunlight coming through the window. She had on a beautiful white dress with lace on it. My mouth hung wide open and my eyes were as wide as a beach ball. Then she all the sudden just disappeared.

I dashed downstairs as quickly as I could and told my mom everything that happened. She didn't believe me so I slowly walked up to my room. Then I began to ask myself , "Was I dreaming?, Was the girl I saw real?" So to answer my question I opened my bedroom door and peeked inside. The door was gone! I could've sworn I saw it there. I decided that my imagination had taken me over so I tried to forget it and I just went about my business.

That night after I fell asleep I felt another cold draft blow through my room. I looked to see if my window was open but it wasn't. That was very odd. As soon as I rolled over my heart jumped as I saw the pale brown headed girl standing right beside my bed! Then she murmured, "Help me!" "help me!" then once again she disappeared. I could not sleep all night that night. I was glad when even the first speck of light glowed on the horizon outside my dew covered window. I was sitting up in my looking around to see if the mysterious door was still there, and there it was.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Froggie Match-Up

School Bus Maze!

Can you circle all of the animals in the story of "Itty Bitty Bunny"?