We were really fortunate this week in that we got to attend a powerful and interesting assembly about two very inspiring people: Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes. Jessica and Patrick are a married couple who both got injured in the Boston Marathon bombings. They ended up writing a book about their service dog Rescue, who has become a vital and supportive member of their family. We read the book, Rescue and Jessica, in class, and then we talked a little about what it means to have a prosthetic leg and how a service dog can have such a positive impact on the life of someone with a disability. The timing of this assembly was pretty ironic, as we literally just read two articles on guide dogs and wrote a text-based essay on the challenges of training a guide dog. Having that background knowledge of what it takes to train these impressive animals was pretty neat. At the assembly, the students were given the opportunity to ask Jessica and Patrick questions after they read their book to us. Tanner, Ariana D., James, and Jessica represented the fourth grade and made us proud with some great questions. I included some pictures below. (Along with a photo of Nathan with an epic bacon t-shirt...)

The students have been working really hard in ELA lately. Writing about texts is no easy task, especially when there are various types of text-based questions. We focused on essays this week, which required students to respond to a question incorporating and expanding on evidence from two texts. I'm so impressed with the effort and stamina students showed me while writing these lengthy and comprehensive essays. Next week we'll focus on narrative writing tasks, which involve students reading a story and then either writing the story from another character's perspective, writing a new ending, or writing the next chapter. Let's just say our April break will be well-deserved!

Bucket Fillers for the week were Ariana M. and Shane. Ariana made me so happy this week. She kicked off Monday by showing me all of this social studies research she did over the weekend. She did an awesome job completing her homework throughout the week, and even did an extra writing for me. Keep it up Ariana! Shane cracks me up. He constantly impresses me with his witty comments and jokes. The two of us bicker at times, but at the end of the day, we're buds. (And sometimes he even tells me he misses me when I'm absent...right Shane???)