Happy Sunday, friends. We have finally made it to the last week of April and are in the home stretch for summer!

I was looking through my Facebook memories this morning, and on this day two years ago, I posted a status lamenting how long April felt. If I only I knew then what I know now... The two weeks between Spring Break and testing have been simultaneously the longest and shortest weeks of the school year so far.

This weekend has been mostly about relaxing. Alexis has been with grandparents, and I was recovering from a stomach bug that's been sweeping through the school. I missed one day of work but made sure I was there on Friday so my students got to have their library visit to do blackout poetry.

We technically wrapped up our poetry unit before National Poetry Month, but it wasn't that long ago for this to not be relevant. Plus, blackout poetry is honestly fun. Here's mine:

If you've never heard of blackout poetry before, it was a concept created by Austin Kleon to help overcome a case of writer's block. He originally used newspaper clippings, but you can use just about anything. Case in point, we used 'weeded books,' or books that have been pulled from our library's shelves due to damage or age. My poem is from an old Nancy Drew mystery. We had just enough time for students to get started - pick a page from a random book and choose the words to make your poem. Then a couple days this week, after testing, they'll get to finish their creation. They can go simple like mine above or get super creative and artistic. I'm not an artist so the traditional black-out method was my choice. Honestly, even though I didn't feel 100 percent, this activity was the highlight of my week.

We finally got to celebrate Alexis's birthday with some of her school friends last weekend. This year, since there are officially no more art places that offer kids' birthday parties on site, Alexis wanted to go to the trampoline park. We invited all of her classmates plus some old friends and cousins. All together we had about ten kids, which I think is the biggest party we've had yet. That second, blurry picture is a good representation of how most of the day went, lol.

I think that's got us all caught up. I hope everyone has a wonderful week. As Mr. Dahl said, find your twinkle!