This week went by surprisingly fast! Perhaps it had to do with Wednesday's half day, or the fact that my Thursday was full of meetings, but regardless, Friday seemed to come quicker than usual. And with Friday came the conclusion to our Landmark Magazine project! After weeks of hard work--from researching to planning to drafting to revising to editing--students were finally ready to copy/paste their written sections into Book Creator, where they had their cover and inside pages already set up with various text features. They honestly look amazing, and I'm hoping to laminate everyone's magazine so that they even further emulate the real deal.

We also had Book Club this week. Most groups are cruising through their books, and I feel like I'm constantly scrambling to select new texts. For an ELA teacher like myself, what a fabulous problem to have! In addition, we did buddies with the first graders again, which is a valuable experience for both grade levels. This time, our focus was on the nonfiction genre and what we've learned about reading informational texts. Practicing strategies like previewing the text and paying attention to text features was a beneficial review for our upcoming nonfiction unit district assessment. And come to find out, first grade has their nonfiction test next week too!

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Juliet and Johnathan. Juliet is as animated and bubbly as they come. She always has a bounce in her step, a story to tell, and a compliment to give. She's been working really hard on writing smaller and neater recently, and I'm super proud of her for that. Her handwriting is already improving immensely! Johnathan has a huge heart. He's observant, reflective, very thoughtful of other people, and just an overall really likable kid. A perfect example is his decision to bring in flag football belts to share with his peers at recess. He didn't make a big deal about it or anything--his reasoning for bringing them in was quite simple: he was tired of people arguing about two-hand touch. He wanted everyone to just get along and have fun. Pretty darn sensible, huh?