This week was weird. Let's start with Monday. On Monday, I had to attend a districtwide meeting for a team I'm on that is in the process of developing a leadership model for Somerville's schools. I had to leave at noon, so the kids had a substitute for the remainder of the day. This brings us to Tuesday. Tuesday was interesting, to say the least. We'll start with a little background. The Kennedy School has so many talented teachers, and we have so much we could learn from each other, so Ms. Song and I are currently facilitating two peer observation cycles using protocols from a peer observation pilot we worked with Mr. Ames and Ms. Bougas (now at the Healey) to design last year. Tuesday was the second of two observation days, and the crew of teachers with whom I had the pleasure of working was amazing: 2nd grade teacher Mr. Bayul, 3rd grade teacher Ms. Labaire, 7th/8th grade social studies teacher Ms. Brady, and music teacher Ms. Ward. Getting to see these guys in action was an unreal opportunity, and getting to debrief all of our lessons afterwards to give each other feedback and exchange ideas was equally beneficial. But for the kids, that meant a very unorthodox day. I was in and out of the classroom all day, with different substitute teachers covering for me for different chunks of time. Throw in the fact that I was beyond disheveled that morning as a result of my alarm going off 1.5 hours later than expected, then being greeted by a broken printer when I did get to school, and it could've been pure chaos. But the kids were actually AWESOME. They were flexible and patient, and I was so grateful.

Then we come to half-day Wednesday. We had our STEAM showcase that day, so again our schedule was unusual. The morning was spent getting ready to present the work we've done with Ms. Tosches so far this year, and later on, we set ourselves up in the Makerspace to prepare for our turn in the showcase. From 10:30-11:00, a few other classes came in to check out our character trait stop motion animations, our work with Scratch using the cardinal directions, and our math Book Creator projects. We also got to visit other grade levels and see their impressive STEAM-related work.

The kiddos of course got dismissed at noon on Wednesday, and Thursday was relatively normal, which leads us to Friday. We filled our classroom Transition Jar last week, which is a system I have in place that rewards students for positive behavior during transitions. I put a marble in the jar whenever we have a smooth transition from one classroom to another, as well as whenever we get a positive report from the specialist teachers. When that jar is filled, each class gets to vote on what they want as a reward. Mrs. O'Keefe's homeroom opted for a whole-class game of mat ball in the gym, while my homeroom settled on a combination of pajama day and board game day. So on Friday, not only did I get to wear comfy clothes and my giant turtle slippers to work, I also got to participate in a game of mat ball. Unfortunately, we had to cut our game a few minutes short due to some game-related disagreements. However, after everyone respectfully took part in a reflective circle discussion on the rug when we got back to the classroom, I'm hopeful that students can learn from what happened. Because when it comes down to it, do the results of a just-for-fun game of mat ball truly matter? Not so much. That afternoon, the kids in my homeroom got to play some of the board games that they brought in, which was a good time. (Getting to play Scrabble on the job? Amazing.)  At the end of the day, we went to a school-wide assembly to kick off next week's Kindness Week. So, as you can see, we had quite the week!

Our Bucket Fillers this week aren't exactly strangers to each other; both Viola and Will got their name pulled. Talk about a twin dream team! Viola is a sweetheart. She is very attentive to the needs of others, and always eager to help out. In addition, she's constantly smiling, which I love. Will is a delight to teach. He embraces my recommendations and feedback, and regularly goes above and beyond what is expected when it comes to reading and writing. He's also just a genuinely nice kid. Looking forward to my lunches with the Redd twins next week. :)