A Book of Noticing

Friday was my last full day in the classroom. I told the children one last story and then gave them a lined exercise book which I had covered in brown wrapping paper. I said,

"This might look like an ordinary exercise book. But it's not. I covered it in brown paper so that when you see it you know that it's different. It's your Book of Noticing. You can write down things that you notice. When I was your age and a little bit older I wanted to be a spy. I had read a story called Odette about a girl who helped the French Resistance during the Second World War. She had to be very observant all the time and pretend to be someone she wasn't.  I also read a book called Harriet the Spy." (They knew about Harriet. They'd seen the movie.) "I liked to go around observing things like Harriet. I had a green binder where I kept my notes."

The children sat patiently on the carpet. The stack of notebooks was beside me.