A fellow blogger, Lisa Reiter, started a project called “Bite-sized Memoir”. The challenge is to write a 150 word piece of memoir on the topic she provides each week. Thought I’d give it a go. If you’d like to learn more, or participate (even if you are not a blogger you may do the challenge and post in the comments section of her blog on the page for each week’s particular topic). Here is the link for more information / guidelines:

http://sharingthestoryblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/bite-size-memoir-no-1-school-at-seven/comment-page-2/#comment-239

This week’s topic was “School at Seven”. I missed her deadline for compilation but decided to do it anyway to warm-up for next week’s topic which she will publish tomorrow.

I am curious to see if I will find this writing just as delicious as those bite-size muffins I was woofing down from the market all summer!

School at Seven

I entered the grade two class of Miss Dari at St. Paul Elementary School in 1968. Her classroom was on the east side of the “old grey school”, the single story wing attached to a brand new two story wing for the older kids. The “older kids” were grade four and five. My Mom was up there too, teaching grade five.
I have few memories of particular activities and lessons in the classroom. However, strangely enough, I have a very vivid recollection of the very first word list lesson in the little hardcover Macmillan spelling text book. The first words we had to know how to spell that year were: the, is, not, cat, cow, car. And they were in that exact order. I would challenge any psychotherapist or neuro-psychologist to explain to me why that spelling list remains embedded in my memory to this very day.