Our last day of ELA MCAS was on Tuesday, and the kids put in so much effort yet again! With that behind us, I wanted to keep the rest of the week relatively light and enjoyable, but still productive and structured. So...we're writing a book! We spent this week working on pages for our book. These writings and illustrations will be compiled together into a book that will represent our 4th grade school year. I had gotten the kit to put this together a few months ago. The kit comes from a company called Studentreasures Publishing, and I thought it'd be a neat way for the kids to celebrate their writing and see their work printed and bound like true authors. I was at a loss when deciding on the theme for our book though, so I raised the predicament to the class. Our brainstorming session brought clarity in that it lacked clarity, and I knew that we were left with one choice: students could write about whatever they wanted. Some students focused the writing for their page on themselves, some wrote about what they want to be when they grow up, some wrote fictional narratives, some wrote personal narratives, and others wrote about a topic they know a lot about. It's transformed into a truly random display of creativity, so I've included a photo of what we'll send in for the cover of our book (I also didn't have any other pictures this week, so...). I hope the kids like it!

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Ryker and Brennan. Both boys made me proud with how much effort they put into the ELA MCAS. I could see them both taking their time, which isn't easy on those long, exhausting, sticky (our classrooms are currently VERY hot) days of testing. I've seen both boys really evolve this school year. Ryker's worked really hard on his writing, even handing in extra credit writing assignments here and there. For our class book, he even wrote a fictional narrative. He got to work right away, and ended up with an imaginative tale about cyborg chickens. (Cyborg animals tended to be a theme for some of our fictional narratives...) He was one of the standout students who remained really focused and enthusiastic about the assignment. Brennan's a computer whiz, and has truly taken advantage of having this year's ELA homework assignments accessible through Schoology. I've seen both his school work and homework grow over the course of the year, and I'm really proud of him!