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Summer Challenge #1: Summer Firsts . . . . . . .

On June 30th, I finished my classroom checkout, and summer has officially begun!

Here is my first book of the summer . . . . .

This morning was my first sunrise swim at the lake.  The bald eagle was fishing nearby, which was so exciting to watch while I was “pool jogging.”  The dark area near the top of the white pine on the island is their nest, with one eaglet this year.

Here are half of the birds I heard as I arrived to swim.

So to keep the blog hopping over the summer months, I put out fun family challenges from time to time.  What are some of the “firsts” of your summer that you’d like to share with our class?  First camping trip?  First s’mores?  First family game night?  First mountain hike? . . . . . .

Just e-mail or text Miss Blessing with any photos and adventures you’d like to share with last year’s class plus the upcoming third graders.  We can’t wait to see what you’re up to!

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Forty Book Challenge Friend

One of our Corps of Discovery friends decided to take on the Forty Book Challenge this year.  Her mom reported,  “A few weeks ago Evie completed her 40 Book Challenge. After Christmas we challenged her to read 40 books of varying genres. She kept a log of the books she read, and her celebration was an Ice Cream Sundae party with the family. Last night we surprised her with all the fixings for a sugary celebration!”

I asked Evie to give us a book talk, as we’re all enjoying summer reading.  Evie says she recommends the Lost Chronicles of Light series. “It’s kind of like Jack and Annie books (Magic Tree House) but with Christians.”

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Forty Book Challenge Celebration!

We are a community of readers!  This year 12 of us read at least 40 chapter books!  We read 819 books, an average of 63 per person!  We were especially excited that we all read at least two complete books of the Bible this year as part of that.

Can’t wait to see what we’ll read this summer!  Please share photos over the summer of your child reading in unusual places, or book shares about excellent selections he or she would recommend to us all.  I will post them all summer long.  Read on!

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Missions Afternoon: Jesus in the Passover

We welcomed Chaim Birnbaum from Jews for Jesus to our Missions Afternoon, and we learned so much!

After a fabulous, action-packed session about Passover seders, we got to try the foods ourselves and search for the hidden afikoman on the playground.

To thank our guest speaker, the third and fourth graders discussed what we learned and created a graphic novel version to send to him.