Monday, October 15, 2012

Frogs

Catherine was very excited to be assigned to help take care of the pet frogs in her class the very first week at school.  She wears glasses and so I thought about what might happen if the class pets benefitted from glasses too!  

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Catherine.  She was very excited to be in first grade.  She knew she would learn a lot in first grade.  She liked her new teacher very much and was especially excited about the pet frogs in her class.  Catherine was even assigned to care for the pet frogs the very first week.

One day when she was feeding the frogs, she heard a tiny voice.  “Hey, down here.  I have a question for you.”  Catherine looked around and much to her surprise realized it was one of the frogs talking to her!

“You can talk!” she exclaimed.  

“Shhh, I don’t usually have too much to say, but I was wondering what’s on your face?”

Unsure of what he meant, Catherine touched her face.  “You mean my glasses?” she said pointing to her purple glasses.

“Yes, what are those for?”

“Oh, glasses help me see so I can learn.”  

The frog paused for a moment and turned to the other frog.  “Do you suppose that’s our problem, Hank?”  He turned back to Catherine.  “We’ve been in this classroom day after day for a couple of years now and we still can’t read.  We notice how much fun it looks for everyone else in here and we would like to try it too.”

Catherine thought for a moment and whispered.  “Do you think you need glasses?  They make it much easier for me to see.”  

“I would really like to try some glasses.  Do you think you could get some glasses in here for me?”  

Catherine thought for a moment and said, “well, I could ask my dad about it.  Let me see what I can do.  They will need to be small.”

That night, Catherine went home and told her dad the problem.  He liked to figure out all kinds of problems and so he thought and thought.  Meanwhile, Catherine found two pairs of Barbie glasses in her Barbie house.  They looked to be about the right size.  Catherine’s dad helped make tiny lenses for the frames and Catherine packed them in her backpack.  

The next day at school when it was time to feed the frogs, she handed the glasses over.  The frogs slipped them on and croaked in approval.  “Simply amazing!” they said.  “Now we can see.  We will learn to read.”

So from that day on, when Mrs. Littlewood taught the children lessons, the frogs listened carefully to everything she said.  Catherine made sure to sit next to the frogs when she was reading so they could look over her shoulder.  They took their work very seriously.  Soon they were excellent readers.  

One morning when Catherine arrived at school, the frogs were gone.  Mrs. Littlewood had looked everywhere wondering how they got out.  Nobody could find the frogs.  Catherine wondered what happened to them until one day she got a postcard from Brazil.  It said, “Dear Catherine, Thanks for the glasses!  We learned to read and figured out how we could set off to see the world.  We’re starting by visiting our family in the rainforest.  Happy reading!  Your friends, Hank and Felix
.”

Catherine shared the postcard from the frogs at show and tell.  Mrs. Littlewood laughed and said, “What a clever story, Catherine.  Frogs with glasses out seeing the world.  What a wonderful imagination you have to imagine our frogs out travelling the world.”  Catherine just smiled and hoped the next class pets were as clever as the frogs.

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