What have "Take My Word For It!" kids been up to? Check out Crocker Highlands:

Students in our after-school and community classes are exploring all the different ways writers generate ideas, and put captivating words on the page.

Here are writing excerpts and some photos of our young authors working with instructor, Lauran Weinmann at Crocker Highlands Elementary in the East Bay:

From “What Are You Made Of?” self-recipe exercise

By Grace

“Friday Spectacular”

Ingredients:

4 ½ pounds soccer

3 pounds Jamaican

15 tablespoons pizza lover

50 pounds awesome

1 pound second child

a pinch of singing

a handful of acting

Directions:

Take a handful of acting and put in a big mixing bowl. Grind it with a pinch of singing. Set aside for 57 minutes. Next take 4 ½ pounds of soccer and put it into a frying pan to get fried for 5 minutes and pour in other mixture. Next put in 1 pound second child, 3 pounds Jamaican background and 50 pounds of awesomeness. Pour both mixtures into heavy duty oven for 1 hour and 53 minutes. Serve with caramel sauce and milk.

From food writing – alliteration

By Noah

Crisp chips crunched, crackled, and condensed.

Chocolate chip cookies crumble quietly.

Vegan vinegar going vsh, vsh.

From food writing – love letter to a food

By Lauren

Dear Salmon,

You can be cooked so many ways: grilled, smoked, barbecued, teriakyed. I could go on for days!

From free write prompt: write a scene in a restaurant

By Gayatri

One day at a Thai restaurant an acrobat and an artist were sitting together. Their names were Big Bob Billy and Curly Kidd.

By Max

Artist Fratti was taking a walk when he saw Bok Choi and Lapchang having lunch as friends together, and he wasn’t invited.

By Ben

 He asked one of the men sitting there, “May I please borrow some salt,” in a strong British accent. He got no reply. Joey decided to just take the salt and leave. As he did so, a firm hand blocked his path.

From free write prompt: write from the perspective of a stack of paper sitting next to a shredder

By Claire

Oh great. At times like this I REALLY wish I had legs. Hi, I’m Carl -- page number one on this stack of bills sitting right next to the shredder.

By Shay

Death. That’s what I tasted in my mouth. The bloody, mushy, dry feeling.

What have "Take My Word For It!" kids been up to? Check out Redwood Heights Elementary:

Students in our after-school and community classes are exploring all the different ways writers generate ideas, and put captivating words on the page.

Here are writing excerpts and some photos of our young authors working with instructor, Lauran Weinmann at Redwood Heights Elementary in the East Bay:

From “What Are You Made Of?” self-recipe exercise:

Recipe for Josie

½ cup pure awesomeness

2 tons of coolness

2 blue-ish eyes

2 cups brown hair

1 pinch anger

1 pinch powdered Unicorn hair

1 quart of strangeness

Step 1: Preheat oven to 360

Step 2: Stir the awesomeness and coolness together (unless you are in bed in the hospital because you threw out your back lifting 2 tons of coolness)

Step 3: Pour the cool-awesome mixture on to the blue-ish eyes, making sure they are thoroughly soaked

Step 4: Sprinkle brown hair and anger into the quart of strangeness

Step 5: Sprinkle powdered unicorn hair onto strange-angry-brown hair.

Step 6: Mix it all together.

Step 7: Put in oven for 45 minutes.

Step 8: EAT.

Recipe for Maddie

20 pounds of chocolate

Half cup of fun

Drop of sarcasm

Quart of awesomeness

5 ounces of pure talent

Recipe for Reilly

1. Mix friendship and animal lover until smooth, but leave a few chunks
2. Stir in blond hair and freckles
3. Chop older sister until microscopic and mince with annoying
4. Leave chocolate by itself
5. Stick in oven at 353 and leave in for 45 minutes
6. Let it go in the wild, but close to 3536 Monterey Blvd., Oakland CA

Recipe for Alex L.

5 tons legos

1/1000 pinch of dog walker

1 gallon robotics

½ cup noisy

1 ½ cups stubborn

1 cup of awesomeness (pure if possible)

Preheat oven to 3,000 degrees. Stir ½ cup noisy with ½ cup stubborn for 2 hours. Put in oven for one day.

More food writing exercises...

By Magda 

Personification: Broccoli

Hello, my name’s Barak oh Broccoli, and yes, I am broccoli. I’m the president of the field. I’m 29 broccoli years old, and my favorite hobby is eating broccoli soup. AAAAAA I’m a cannibal! I just ate my cousin Nina!

By Sydney:

(If I were a food, I’d be...)

I would be a lime because usually people don’t like limes. And if they do like limes, it’s to make limeade so they would juice me and that would probably feel good.

By Justine

(Food metaphors/similes)

Cantaloupe: Smells like a rose blooming in late summer. Tastes like late spring and early summer.

Gummy bunny: Smells like an edible rose where the petals are made out of fruit. Tastes like an explosion of gooey fruit in my mouth.

By Alex H.

(Food metaphors/similes)

Gummy bunny: Smooth as plastic; squishy as mud; cold as the refrigerator; stretchy as gum.

Cantaloupe: Orange as my hair; juicy as water; sweet as candy; yummy as apricots.

Graham cracker: Crunchy as tree bark; rough as sandpaper; smells like nothing; brown like my shirt with trees on it.