The Adventures of Julie and Bella 2025

Hey friends! 👋 For those of you following along with my 5th grade reading challenge — today marks the halfway point! 🎉

To keep the motivation going, I made some fun ✨ motivational signs ✨ to hang on each of the 5th-grade classroom doors this morning. I can already feel the excitement building! 😄 I also decided to tally up my reading minutes so far to share with my students tomorrow… and I’m currently at 2,875 minutes, which comes out to roughly 48 hours of reading this month! 😲📖 I’m finishing up book number 4 and have less than 100 pages to go!

What started as a simple challenge to motivate my students to read and (hopefully!) discover a love for books like I have ❤️ has turned into something so much bigger. The joy on their faces 😍 when they talk about what they’re reading truly fills my heart. 💕 I love seeing their enthusiasm, their competitiveness 💪, and the teamwork they’re showing as they try their hardest to beat me! 🏃‍♀️📚

I’ll admit — after my busy weekend and start to the week 🗓️, I might be a little behind on my minutes. But honestly like I’ve said before, I feel like I’ve already won. 🏆 If even one student has found a spark of excitement for reading because of this challenge, that’s the best reward I could ask for. 🥰

Of course… I wouldn’t hate earning the title of “winner,” either! 😉

Stay tuned to see if I can pull this off! 👀📚