This week learned a great mindfulness strategy. We learned that our brains tend to focus on the negative in situations. We had a visual of a bottle with a thin neck that only lets in these smaller, negative "balls." The larger, and positive, green balls bounce off the top and don't fit in the neck. We need to OPEN the bottle neck. We can actually, "use our mind to train our brain," (Rick Hanson) We know that teaching ourselves to be optimistic helps our overall health, so this is important! We learned HEAL. Try it at home! It's super relaxing and calming! In reading we honed our skills as summarizers of fiction. We are CSERT experts! Focusing on the main Character, the Setting, narrowing the Experience they are having, watching for the Resolution, and finally, adding the Theme or lesson results in a very accurate summarization of the text. We practiced with a number of books, including one from our Dec. 15th visiting author. We enjoyed Phil Bildner...