What? How is it already October?!

Holy Cow!  It seems like yesterday we were bemoaning the fact that summer was ending, and here we are, already wrapping up our first six weeks! I guess time flies even faster when you're being productive along with having fun...

This week we've had quite a few people finishing up long books, and we're discussing how to write good book recommendations. I love this phase of our "class vibe" development, because as more of us finish books, more books are shared and swapped, and our personal "Books I Want to Read" lists grow longer and longer. An interesting dynamic occurs in a classroom that reads.  We become like a little family and start having these great bonds that are formed over books. When you bond with someone over a shared "book experience," it's a really special thing--and it's so much fun to witness and of which to be a part.  Hopefully before too much longer, we'll be sharing some reviews/blog posts about some of those books here on our classroom blog.

During English, we are continuing to make connections between the books we've read together and the narrative writing process.  We've been discussing the importance of using elaborate details for describing story critical characters, settings and objects, while being careful to not use irrelevant details, simply for the sake of adding more words to our writing. Hopefully next week we'll begin devoting more time to word study--it's just so hard to get it all in during our 100 minutes together!  I swear, sometimes I think the clock goes faster within these four walls...

Today, when the bell rang to go to lunch, and the kids ran out, leaving everything where it landed, I decided to stop, relax, and spend my lunch period doing what I love best...READING!  Those are my blue toes peeking out of the fluffy house slipper flip flops I wear in the classroom--and yep, I'm taking advantage of that wonderful couch!

Have a fantastic rest of the week!

~Mrs. Schauer