All kinds of goodness rolled into one

I thought this week would be calm, but I was sadly mistaken. So here I am at the end of the week posting everything that's happened so far. I decided to just make one big post AND to focus on the positives. We all know this time of year can be stressful. I don't need to remind you.

I thought about doing Five for Friday, but not much happened this week other than Tuesday when the  Reptile Man came! We have this assembly every other year, and I live for it! The man has been coming to our school for over 30 years, and he's hypotizing - something about his voice. Our assistant principal described him as a "happy Eeyore", if you can imagine that. This is the only thing I took pictures of all week, and they're not the greatest because I was in the back, but this was SO much fun! If you live in Maryland or Virginia, see about trying to get him to come to your school. You won't regret it.

This snake's name is Lipstick, and we got to pet her at the end. 

Moving on to the linkies that I am participating in: 

At Home: Steven finished his Master's degree on Sunday, and his graduation was earlier today. We didn't go because he was a distance learner with University of Cincinnati, but I'll have to make sure we celebrate. This means that we will have a lot more family time (and he can keep his job next year when he's teaching college level classes)! I'm so proud of him!

At School: I've been really focusing on test-taking skills recently because we're 2 1/2 weeks away from the start of ours (that's not the "something good"). Anyway, I've been so pleased with how well my kids are doing with highlighting to prove their answers! I've been complimenting them so much, and hopefully they can remember to apply that to the actual test and not burn out. I think they've got a fighting chance, though!

For this sweet linky, I decided to share a book that I discovered last year after my librarian recommended it.

I know I've mentioned it before, but it's so good that I want to shed light on it again. Our school has a VERY high special education population (like we think there might be a sign on the interstate - there are about 17 in 4th grade alone), and I had the inclusion class for a few years. This book is about Patricia when she was in school (Did you know she was dyslexic?) and how her teacher showed them that everyone is important and has a purpose in life. Be ready to cry! I used this book to work on questioning because it does make the kids stop and think about so much. I found a very simple thinkmark (don't remember where - please let me know if you've seen it) that you can download here. Students simply write the page number and their questions. Then we talk about them later.

If you work with students who have special needs, this is a must-read. Even if you don't have students with special needs, it's so important for all of our kids to realize that different doesn't mean you're just a "part of the junkyard".