I'm kicking myself. I wanted to take photos during our parent/guardian welcome breakfast on Friday morning, but it totally slipped my mind. That's okay, we'll have other gatherings this year that will similarly involve family involvement! I FINALLY gave students permission to explore my beloved classroom library this week...which I know seems quite delayed considering I am the ELA teacher. But I had to ward the kids off for the first two weeks or so, and that's the direct result of having wayyyyy too many books. This summer, I got an assortment of new books to add to my (already-overflowing) classroom library. As I started allocating the books to their appropriate genre bins, I realized that I would not have nearly enough room to add even a fraction of them. So, naturally, I decided that the only logical solution would be to expand and reorganize my classroom library. The only problem was that this decision happened to occur during the final days of summer break. Yup, the last week before the start of school wasn't the most opportune time for such a monumental undertaking. Well, tons of bin purchases, lots of book sorting, and a great deal of book-bin-label-laminating later, my library was just about complete, and just in time for the first day of school. The final hurdle? The actual labeling of books, which takes much longer than you'd think. Fortunately, that's where my lovely homeroom came in. After asking a few students here and there to give me a hand in taking off the old labels, the class expressed that they'd all like to pitch in and help me get the labeling done. So, that's exactly what we did. I was grateful not only for their willingness to help, but also for how well we all worked together as a team to accomplish a task. Since then, I've tried to give students as much independent reading time as I can. In addition, we've talked about and practiced how to find a "just right" book, discussed what it means to really read and interact with what we're reading, and even played charades to establish independent reading expectations.

On Friday, we were invited into Miss Matteis's first grade classroom to read with her kiddos. The time frame ended up being during Mrs. O'Keefe's homeroom's ELA block, but there'll definitely be more opportunities this school year to collaborate with other grade levels, and it'll all even out for the two homerooms. The kids made me so proud, and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Make sure to check out the photos below!

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Cash and Will. Cash is so helpful. I often notice him putting up chairs of absent students at the end of the school day, picking up pencils off the floor when we're lining up to head into the hallway, and just being an all-around awesome member of our classroom community. Will is also awesome. He is incredibly driven and eager to learn, so much so that he has already become an expert on the US map and its fifty states. I can't wait to see all that he will undoubtedly accomplish this school year!