We came back from winter break for three days...and what an interesting three days it was. We'll start with my lack of voice. There were moments on both Wednesday and Thursday when I literally didn't have a voice. I'd try to speak and nothing would come out. I sounded a lot worse than I felt though, and I'm glad I didn't call out for a sub. The kids were also wonderfully attentive and kind, to the point that this may have been one of our best behaved weeks of the school year! (Maybe I'm onto something...maybe losing your voice is the latest and greatest in classroom management...) Fortunately in terms of my throat, things were a bit better on Friday. It definitely wasn't a typical day though. When it was announced that our school was going into a secure and hold lockdown, I was in the middle of my prep time. My homeroom was in gym and Mrs. O'Keefe's homeroom was in the cafeteria for concert rehearsal. I felt pretty helpless that I wasn't with my fourth graders, but I can say with confidence that they handled the understandably nerve-racking situation with maturity. As we discussed during our whole-class conversation after the lockdown was over, the events that unfolded were taken as a precaution and we are incredibly safe at the Kennedy School.

We had FOUR Bucket Fillers this week, two from each class. This was the result of the great week we had, in addition to the fact that we didn't pick Bucket Fillers for the week prior to vacation. For Mrs. O'Keefe's homeroom, Kailynn and Annabel C. took the weekly title. I was so impressed with Kailynn's ability to bounce back after being a bit shaken up on Friday. Our ELA block was of course shortened that day, but she was able to fill out her entire graphic organizer, participate, and overall just have a really awesome class. For Annabel, it was her participation this week that especially stood out. We're tackling some tough stuff in our nonfiction unit as we've begun writing text-based responses, and Annabel has shown me a lot of effort in how often she is willing to put herself out there and raise her hand. Miles and Brennan won Bucket Filler in my homeroom. Similar to Annabel, I was proud of how much Miles participated this past week. It's fun to see his face when he has an "Aha!" moment, making it evident that he's actively listening to and making sense of the lesson's content. Since the beginning of the year, Brennan has also grown a lot in how much he participates. Furthermore, he did a really nice job with his homework this week, and I'm hoping that effort continues. Keep up the good work, everyone!