It’s Saturday and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres’ blog to read others’ celebrations.
I can’t believe how incredibly busy my life got so quickly. I had a lot of bright spots in the last few weeks, but didn’t make the time to do my Saturday posts because my weekends have been crazy! And, how is it May 21st already?!?!
Lately, I have been reflecting about the school year a lot. I still have a few weeks of school left, but we are definitely in that final crunch of the year. The past month flew by on a cloud of testing, testing, and more testing for my fourth grade kiddos. The state testing window overlaps with our third Star testing window for our district so we go straight into more testing when we finish with the State test. Our routines are so thrown off by all of this. So, today I am celebrating the fact that, for the most part, we are finished with testing.
I am also celebrating the group of students I have in this class. The end of the school year is looming and I am not exactly ready to send these kiddos on. This is a rambunctious, energetic, kind, and ready-to-learn group of students. We have a wonderful community and I love going to school every day because I love the place that we have created together. So, today I am celebrating community and creating an environment for learning.
This week, we had volunteers come in from Joy Global to do the Junior Achievement curriculum with our students. This is always a really nice day. The students enjoy the games and activities in the Junior Achievement curriculum and the volunteers have a fun day and get a chance to experience what teachers do all day every day. The volunteers that came into my classroom were awesome and my students had an excellent experience.
Last, but certainly not least, I am celebrating the power of story. This group of students loves read aloud time. We have read so many great books this year. We have cried together, had belly laughs together, and just loved characters and stories together. So, a couple weeks ago, I decided that I needed to share Harry Potter with this group. I introduced the book by telling the kids that this is one of my all-time favorites and that even if they saw the movies they really didn’t experience it yet. We are about halfway through and our read aloud time is magic. They are loving the book, as I knew they would. What is great is that there are some kids who have not seen the movies. The audible reactions to things that are happening is priceless. The protests when I stop reading tell me that this was the right choice of books to share for our last few weeks.
What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!
The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner will be coming out in September 2016. I was lucky enough to get a copy on NetGalley. This book is amazing. For those of us who are old enough that we remember clearly and exactly what we were doing on the morning of 9/11, it is a chilling reminder of the sentiments during those times. For young people who did not experience it first hand, this book does a great job of giving them the vicarious experience so that they might understand it better. The writing in the book is amazing. I love the decision that the author made to have alternating viewpoints and to have one of those narrators be narrating her story in verse. I will write a more in-depth review closer to release, but this is definitely a must-read for this fall.
I am a big fan of murder mysteries. In The Woods by Tana French was intriguing and kept me guessing about what was happening. The solution to the mystery was a little bit predictable I think, but I am interested in looking for the other books about the Dublin Murder Squad. I would recommend this one for adults.
Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library is a cute book that I got from NetGalley. It is one I will definitely look for when it comes out in August. I love how the author really highlights all the great things you can do in a public library.
The Night Children by Sarah Tsiang is a beautifully illustrated book. I felt that the premise of the book was kind of creepy and I think some kids might be scared to think that when they are asleep there are some other creatures going about doing things, but maybe I am just super sensitive.