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and a little bit of magic. Our elementary classroom guidance lessons have been focusing on our Character pillar of caring. Over the past few weeks all the K-3 classrooms have read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. This wonderfully uplifting book teaches us all, young and old, to fill someone's bucket. Using this book and careful practice each day we hope to become a bucket filling school. In grades 4-5, we just finished up our first round of duct tape lessons. Students were challenged to work together as a group using a marker held up with duct tape straps to write words and draw pictures. Their communication and teamwork skills were certainly put to the test. As we move into February we celebrate my favorite week, National School Counselor Week, February 3-7.  This year's theme is "School Counseling: Building Magical Futures." It is a great time to recognize the wonderful work that not only Groton Area's school counselors do each day but also school counselors across the nation. I think it would great to have a magic wand to wave around and make everything just so. However, since I don't have a wand I will stick to what I know: being a great school counselor.
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• High School Band - Mr. Johnson
• The high school band is now in the time of year for solos, small ensembles, jazz band, all-state band auditions, and pep band.  On January 23^rd, the Jazz Band will attend its first jazz festival of the year at NSU.  We perform at 8:45 a.m. in the Johnson Fine Arts Center.  On February 12^th, many of the high school band members will attend Region IV Solo and Ensemble Contest in Aberdeen, where they will perform solos, duets, and small ensembles for a judge.  The pep band has also been playing at several home basketball games.  Other important band events this semester include Large Group Contest on March 26^th, Brookings Optimist/SDSU Jazz Festival on April 3^rd, and the Pops Concert on April 13^th
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• 6^th Grade Music - Mr. Johnson
• We are currently using solfege to teach pitch and sight singing.  This is the practice of assigning pitch syllables (do, re, mi, etc.) with corresponding hand signs to melody.  Learning how to do this well improves the students' ability to actually read music and sing better with less rote teaching!
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• 7^th Grade Math - Mrs. Hanson
• In 7^th grade math, are just finishing up equations and inequalities which is a huge

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