Summer 2017 Recap
In our continued efforts to keep families informed and updated about the curriculum at Blake, each month we 'highlight' updates from the different departments. We hope this will help facilitate conversations at home and maintain a bridge between home and school. Below please find a Summer 2017 Recap. You will see that our staff have enjoyed a nice mixture of relaxation/enjoyment with professional development/growth.
Art
Christina Delaney took a class at Danforth Museum School with Bob Collins called 3D Materials, Methods & Techniques for the Classroom. She came away with some great ideas and is ready to integrate them into the classroom. She also researched and designed ways to connect each lesson to relevant Art History exemplars.
Every two years, an international art show is held in Venice, and Nancy Deveno visited with her husband. This year's theme was "Viva Arte". She also went to many collateral exhibits, museums, and galleries, and created about 20 watercolors depicting areas of Venice. Nancy also worked on an R and D project that would align the Blake Art curriculum with the humanities aspects of field trips of each grade (Peabody Essex, Museum of Fine Art, Washington D.C.).
She brought her watercolor paint and supplies to create a body of work. She is in preparation for Jamaica Plain Open Studios, where she and fellow art teacher Kate Jones will be showing their work.
Joe Knaus is excited to be teaching some sections at Blake this year. He has been teaching Kindergarten and 1st grade Art at Memorial and will teach a few sections of 6th grade and 8th grade Art. Joe spent the summer months working at the Nobles Day Camp in Dedham, teaching Art and Design to students aged 5-15.
English
Individual initiatives:
Kathleen Caprio (Grade 6) took academic advantage of summer’s more leisurely pace to read all the summer reading options and many more titles as well. Eileen Hurley (Grade 6) finalized her Master’s in Education from Endicott College and her certification for principalship. Elise Malone also completed a summer graduate course titled “Reading for Understanding” This course focused on first and second “draft” readings and strategies to help students “unpack” metaphors to maximize understanding. Amy Reynolds (Grade 7) completed a graduate course titled: “Differentiated Learning: How to Teach to Varying Ability Levels.” Nate Walkowicz (Grade 7) completed two graduate courses this summer and spent time writing and publishing a short story. Ian Gagne (Grade 8) completed a writers’ workshop and incorporated its strategies into his second novel. Seth Hellerstein (Grade 8) took part in a Project Adventure workshop titled “Technical Skills” where participants learned and practiced strategies to ensure student safety in all classroom activities.
Summer R+ D:
Guidance
This summer, the Guidance Counselors spent some time looking at the five Social-Emotional Competencies and discussed ways to align the guidance class curriculum to more accurately reflect these SEL competencies. These SEL competencies include: Self-Management, Self-Awareness, Responsible Decision Making, Relationship Skills, and Social Awareness. The intended outcomes/skills for each guidance class were reviewed and are as follows:
Grade 6 Group Guidance
Library
The K-12 Library Department is excited to announce some new changes for the 2017-18 school year and to celebrate some ongoing projects and transformations!
The Blake Math Department spent a lot of time enjoying all that summer has to offer. We all spent time putting our tourist hats on visiting locations around the world...from Florida to Canada to Italy to Greece! While some are empty nesters, we have new grandchildren and new babies that were celebrated. We managed to volunteer time to work with others who need help learning to ride bikes or establishing a well-stocked community pantry. Ever the learners, teachers took the time to take courses in a wide variety of topics including technology integration to how the brain learns math. We then spent time working together by grade level to brighten our understanding of standards based reporting. Pilots will continue at Blake in this area at all grade levels. There was time spent on differentiating our classrooms for diverse learning experiences. In this vein, our work throughout recent years have focused on bringing in visual models for our content standards as well as traditional verbal models. Well-rested, we are ready and very excited to work with Blakers in math classes for the 2017-2018 school year!
Science
The 6th grade team met together to create a curriculum map for the 2016 Massachusetts STE frameworks while also taking many graduate classes. With young children and new babies, there was a lot of quality family time enjoying the beautiful summer weather. Vacations included time on lakes in New York, Maine and Vermont and time on the sea shore in New Jersey!
7th grade science teachers are rolling out the 2016 Mass STE frameworks this year along with a full year of SBR so they spent a lot of time this summer working on both of these initiatives. Despite this they managed to find time to take other classes, relax, volunteer to educate the public about invasive species, and to go boating and fishing. While Mrs. Silva and Mrs. Dalzell spent their vacation in the New England area, Mr. Walas visited seventeen states, two canadian provinces, seven national parks and three national monuments!
Grade 8 science teachers worked on a pbl unit and spent a lot of quality time with their families and new babies, relaxing, recharging and swimming on various lakes.
Social Studies
The Sixth Grade World Geography team worked this summer to streamline the curriculum that aligns with school wide initiatives and pulls the five teachers closer together. Work included development of common assessments and a push towards standards based grading. The team is “testing the standards based grading” waters” this year.
Ancient Civilizations 7th grade teachers had numerous professional and personal experiences this summer. Deb Manning spent the summer "Experiencing History" both in the US and in Scotland. She went to the Corning Glass museum in upstate NY and spent some time exploring their exhibit on ancient glass making. It was fascinating to learn about the evolution of glass. Deb also went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to learn about a little more recent history. In addition, she spent a couple of weeks in Scotland exploring old castles and learning about the Highland Games. Lucas Mihalich completed his master’s degree. Greg Keohan began the summer by traveling to Berlin, Germany. While there he immersed himself in German culture and saw the famous bust of Nefertiti in the Neues Museum. He also spent many hours at the Topography of Terror, which explains the rise of the Nazi party, particularly the dreaded Schutzstaffel (SS), and exploring the fantastic collection at the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum). He also learned a lot about the role of the Berlin Wall in the city's history. Greg states “Berlin was an absolutely fantastic city to visit (laid back, open-minded, friendly, easy to travel by bike, inexpensive) and I can't wait to go back.” He then traveled to Sacramento, California, to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities seminar entitled "The Transcontinental Railroad: Transforming California and the Nation." This week-long seminar included teachers from all around the country and gave him an in-depth look into how the first railroad to connect California with the east was an engineering marvel that came with high social costs. In fact, as part of the seminar,he went to Stanford University and heard historian Richard White argue that the railroad was a 'big mistake' and should not have been built! White's argument was based on the high social costs that came with the construction of the railroad, particularly in terms destruction to Native peoples and the environment (almost wiping out the buffalo), as well as blatant political corruption, and the toxic consequences that unfettered capitalism had on labor, particularly the Chinese workers. Another highlight of this experience was traveling up into the Sierra Nevada mountains to enter massive tunnels built by Chinese workers through sheer granite. These workers used simple hand tools and powerful explosives to complete a very dangerous (and truly awe-inspiring) task. Later in the summer Greg journeyed to New York City and Montreal, looked at public art and thought about the messages that statues send. “For example, Sheridan Square, located in the East Village of Manhattan, features a statue of General Philip H. Sheridan, a cavalry officer during the Civil War and later General-in-Chief of the US Army. Sheridan believed firmly in a war of genocide against Native populations, but nobody (to my knowledge) is calling for this statue to come down, even though it sits across from the Stonewall Bar, a birthplace of the LGBTQ rights movement.” During all of this, Greg took three online courses that he found to be very helpful in expanding his teacher “tool-kit.” (Principles of Great Teaching, Project-Based Learning, and Ancient Rome: Rise of an Empire). As a result of these courses,he is looking to focus more on building skills this year in order to empower students with 21st century skills such as collaboration, presentation, and critical thinking. His goals for the year will involve teaching content through more project-based and inquiry-based learning. All in all, it was a great summer!
8th grade World History I teachers worked hard on launching a new field trip. The trip will take the students to the Worcester Art Museum. They are excited to introduce this trip which will allow students to view art from Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Students will also watch a tremendous interactive presentation about medieval armor. In addition, students will create personal medieval art. This will be an incredible addition to the Middle Ages unit. In addition to working with his 6th and 8th grade colleagues, John Sullivan enjoyed catching up with family and friends and saw James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt at Fenway Park.
Special Education
The Special Education department was very busy this summer! They mixed all sorts of travel and fun, with time for classes and professional development. It is hard to summarize all the amazing things they did...but here goes… Our department spent time in the ESY program, taking classes on ADHD, Social Thinking, Empowering Adolescents and Dealing with Difficult Parents. They completed lesson plans on Project Happiness, practiced puppy training, reviewed Wilson materials, acclimated to new jobs and completed their 500 practicum hours. However, they still managed to spend time with family and friends, see their baby’s first steps, read some good books, go to concerts and go on some amazing trips! Trips included- a Bermuda Cruise, Northern California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, JFK Library, Castle Island, Cape Cod, Adirondack Mountains, The Rocky Mountains, Six Flags and Mystic CT...just to name a few! :)
Wellness
Wellness Content Specialist Susan Cowell worked over the summer with Dave and Stephanie Worthley analyzing data from the 2016 MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey. Blake and MHS administrators will be discussing the results this fall, and following that information will be available for the community. Stay tuned for more in the September 2017 blog.
Mrs. Cowell also met this summer with School Resource Officer Michelle Bento, and Anne Gilligan, from the MA Dept of Education to discuss a variety of health education curricula designed to help students develop the social emotional competencies described in the Guidance section above. Follow up meetings are being held to determine which curricula best match our students’ needs based upon the 2016 MWAHS results.
Physical Education and Health teacher, Kathleen McCullough, took a number of graduate courses this summer such as “Create and Captivate: Using Online Presentations”, “Mindful Leadership in Schools”, “Effective Classroom Management”, “Courage to Care: Working with At-Risk Students” and “What Great Teachers Do.” These courses helped Kathleen gain knowledge and leadership skills which will in enhance her Health and Physical curricula.
Phys Ed and Health Teacher, Tom Woods, also took a number of graduate courses. Focusing on the Health content especially, his courses were titled “Health Self Esteem”, “Why Gender Matters in Education”, “Prevention and Intervention of Bullying” as well as two courses focusing on lifelong wellness for both teachers and students. Tom is excited to incorporate much of what he learned in these classes into his daily routines in both the gymnasium and the classroom. Tom also took some time to begin clearing paths and installing disc golf baskets in the schools’ surrounding property so as to incorporate disc golf into the Physical Education curriculum. His hope is that this will also encourage students to enjoy a new outdoor physical activity in their spare time.
World Language
It has been a busy summer for everyone in the World Language department. We excited to be back and ready to be with our students, but it was a summer of learning, enrichment and reflection for all.
Maura Batts enjoyed 2 classes in educational leadership digging deep into Difficult Conversations and Emotional Intelligence! Beyond that she enjoyed Martha’s Vineyard, Narragansett and Hershey Park with her family. Susie Boulos travelled to Mexico and explored the Mayan culture with her husband. She also enjoyed many afternoons with her nieces and nephews, got to know her dog, Piper! She also served at summer camp with 600 amazing teens from around New England.
Heather Gonzalez volunteered with a local immigrant organization and helped with translating. She also participated in four days of the Proficiency Academy sponsored by MAFLA (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association) for World Language teachers at Westfield State. Sam Cowell connected with family, friends, and 200 local kids ages 5-12 at Franklin Country Day Camp as the Boating area counselor.
Nicki Welling visited Nantucket, Vermont and Cape Cod, and also spent a week spent visiting a friend in Illinois with her daughter. She loved relaxing at home with her family! Elaine Liu worked for StarTalk Chinese program at Umass Boston as instructional lead as well as instructor for level III class. She also participated StarTalk Umass Boston teachers training program.
Eileen Buckham hosted a French student from Chantilly, France for the end of the school year and the first part of summer; she enjoyed showing her the historical sites of New England, and our American tradition of the 4th of July. She also enjoyed time on Martha’s Vineyard, relaxing, and catching up with family and friends. Content Specialist Ellen Toubman participated in an OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) workshop sponsored by ACTFL (American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages), one of the requirements for becoming a certified interviewer and rater for ACTFL She also enjoyed an amazing trip to Israel and Jordan and lots of time reading and enjoying the outdoors.
In our continued efforts to keep families informed and updated about the curriculum at Blake, each month we 'highlight' updates from the different departments. We hope this will help facilitate conversations at home and maintain a bridge between home and school. Below please find a Summer 2017 Recap. You will see that our staff have enjoyed a nice mixture of relaxation/enjoyment with professional development/growth.
Art
Christina Delaney took a class at Danforth Museum School with Bob Collins called 3D Materials, Methods & Techniques for the Classroom. She came away with some great ideas and is ready to integrate them into the classroom. She also researched and designed ways to connect each lesson to relevant Art History exemplars.
Every two years, an international art show is held in Venice, and Nancy Deveno visited with her husband. This year's theme was "Viva Arte". She also went to many collateral exhibits, museums, and galleries, and created about 20 watercolors depicting areas of Venice. Nancy also worked on an R and D project that would align the Blake Art curriculum with the humanities aspects of field trips of each grade (Peabody Essex, Museum of Fine Art, Washington D.C.).
She brought her watercolor paint and supplies to create a body of work. She is in preparation for Jamaica Plain Open Studios, where she and fellow art teacher Kate Jones will be showing their work.
Joe Knaus is excited to be teaching some sections at Blake this year. He has been teaching Kindergarten and 1st grade Art at Memorial and will teach a few sections of 6th grade and 8th grade Art. Joe spent the summer months working at the Nobles Day Camp in Dedham, teaching Art and Design to students aged 5-15.
English
Individual initiatives:
Kathleen Caprio (Grade 6) took academic advantage of summer’s more leisurely pace to read all the summer reading options and many more titles as well. Eileen Hurley (Grade 6) finalized her Master’s in Education from Endicott College and her certification for principalship. Elise Malone also completed a summer graduate course titled “Reading for Understanding” This course focused on first and second “draft” readings and strategies to help students “unpack” metaphors to maximize understanding. Amy Reynolds (Grade 7) completed a graduate course titled: “Differentiated Learning: How to Teach to Varying Ability Levels.” Nate Walkowicz (Grade 7) completed two graduate courses this summer and spent time writing and publishing a short story. Ian Gagne (Grade 8) completed a writers’ workshop and incorporated its strategies into his second novel. Seth Hellerstein (Grade 8) took part in a Project Adventure workshop titled “Technical Skills” where participants learned and practiced strategies to ensure student safety in all classroom activities.
Summer R+ D:
- Summer Reading: Elise Malone (Grade 6). Amy Reynolds (Grade 7), and Ann Marie Fratolillo (Grade 8) collaborated on a summer R+D to create summer reading activities for all students.
- Brian Gavaghan, Amy Reynolds, and Nate Walkowicz (Grade 7) collaborated on a summer R+D to create a self-paced parts of speech unit with extension activities. summer reading activities for all students.
- Kathleen Caprio, Amy Reynolds, Nate Walkowicz, and Seth Hellerstein worked on a summer R+D to unpack the newly revised ELA writing standards.
Guidance
This summer, the Guidance Counselors spent some time looking at the five Social-Emotional Competencies and discussed ways to align the guidance class curriculum to more accurately reflect these SEL competencies. These SEL competencies include: Self-Management, Self-Awareness, Responsible Decision Making, Relationship Skills, and Social Awareness. The intended outcomes/skills for each guidance class were reviewed and are as follows:
Grade 6 Group Guidance
- Making successful transitions
- Social skills
- Empathy and sympathy
- Resiliency
- Self-advocacy
- Autonomy
- Self-exploration
- Respect
- Reflection
- Multicultural awareness
- Social justice / civil rights
- Human nature
- Exploring self-interests
- Presentation skills
Library
The K-12 Library Department is excited to announce some new changes for the 2017-18 school year and to celebrate some ongoing projects and transformations!
- Kerry Cowell is excited to take on the role as the new K-12 Content Specialist. She spent a lot of time over the summer meeting with each building principal and other school administrators in order to build a shared vision for the K-12 Medfield School Libraries. With all that is going on in our world, it is more important than ever that our libraries are the heart of our schools. We look forward to continue to provide safe havens for all.
- Summer R&D
- Bethany Robertson and Kerry Cowell worked with Diane Horvath to help align our grades 2-8 coding programs. We have a great document that we used to share out our current situations so that we can continue to collaborate and build this program together in hopes of broadening it to K-12.
- Jon Haycock worked with a team of teachers to further develop digital citizenship at Blake. They are continuing this very important work throughout the fall.
The Blake Math Department spent a lot of time enjoying all that summer has to offer. We all spent time putting our tourist hats on visiting locations around the world...from Florida to Canada to Italy to Greece! While some are empty nesters, we have new grandchildren and new babies that were celebrated. We managed to volunteer time to work with others who need help learning to ride bikes or establishing a well-stocked community pantry. Ever the learners, teachers took the time to take courses in a wide variety of topics including technology integration to how the brain learns math. We then spent time working together by grade level to brighten our understanding of standards based reporting. Pilots will continue at Blake in this area at all grade levels. There was time spent on differentiating our classrooms for diverse learning experiences. In this vein, our work throughout recent years have focused on bringing in visual models for our content standards as well as traditional verbal models. Well-rested, we are ready and very excited to work with Blakers in math classes for the 2017-2018 school year!
Science
The 6th grade team met together to create a curriculum map for the 2016 Massachusetts STE frameworks while also taking many graduate classes. With young children and new babies, there was a lot of quality family time enjoying the beautiful summer weather. Vacations included time on lakes in New York, Maine and Vermont and time on the sea shore in New Jersey!
7th grade science teachers are rolling out the 2016 Mass STE frameworks this year along with a full year of SBR so they spent a lot of time this summer working on both of these initiatives. Despite this they managed to find time to take other classes, relax, volunteer to educate the public about invasive species, and to go boating and fishing. While Mrs. Silva and Mrs. Dalzell spent their vacation in the New England area, Mr. Walas visited seventeen states, two canadian provinces, seven national parks and three national monuments!
Grade 8 science teachers worked on a pbl unit and spent a lot of quality time with their families and new babies, relaxing, recharging and swimming on various lakes.
Social Studies
The Sixth Grade World Geography team worked this summer to streamline the curriculum that aligns with school wide initiatives and pulls the five teachers closer together. Work included development of common assessments and a push towards standards based grading. The team is “testing the standards based grading” waters” this year.
Ancient Civilizations 7th grade teachers had numerous professional and personal experiences this summer. Deb Manning spent the summer "Experiencing History" both in the US and in Scotland. She went to the Corning Glass museum in upstate NY and spent some time exploring their exhibit on ancient glass making. It was fascinating to learn about the evolution of glass. Deb also went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to learn about a little more recent history. In addition, she spent a couple of weeks in Scotland exploring old castles and learning about the Highland Games. Lucas Mihalich completed his master’s degree. Greg Keohan began the summer by traveling to Berlin, Germany. While there he immersed himself in German culture and saw the famous bust of Nefertiti in the Neues Museum. He also spent many hours at the Topography of Terror, which explains the rise of the Nazi party, particularly the dreaded Schutzstaffel (SS), and exploring the fantastic collection at the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum). He also learned a lot about the role of the Berlin Wall in the city's history. Greg states “Berlin was an absolutely fantastic city to visit (laid back, open-minded, friendly, easy to travel by bike, inexpensive) and I can't wait to go back.” He then traveled to Sacramento, California, to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities seminar entitled "The Transcontinental Railroad: Transforming California and the Nation." This week-long seminar included teachers from all around the country and gave him an in-depth look into how the first railroad to connect California with the east was an engineering marvel that came with high social costs. In fact, as part of the seminar,he went to Stanford University and heard historian Richard White argue that the railroad was a 'big mistake' and should not have been built! White's argument was based on the high social costs that came with the construction of the railroad, particularly in terms destruction to Native peoples and the environment (almost wiping out the buffalo), as well as blatant political corruption, and the toxic consequences that unfettered capitalism had on labor, particularly the Chinese workers. Another highlight of this experience was traveling up into the Sierra Nevada mountains to enter massive tunnels built by Chinese workers through sheer granite. These workers used simple hand tools and powerful explosives to complete a very dangerous (and truly awe-inspiring) task. Later in the summer Greg journeyed to New York City and Montreal, looked at public art and thought about the messages that statues send. “For example, Sheridan Square, located in the East Village of Manhattan, features a statue of General Philip H. Sheridan, a cavalry officer during the Civil War and later General-in-Chief of the US Army. Sheridan believed firmly in a war of genocide against Native populations, but nobody (to my knowledge) is calling for this statue to come down, even though it sits across from the Stonewall Bar, a birthplace of the LGBTQ rights movement.” During all of this, Greg took three online courses that he found to be very helpful in expanding his teacher “tool-kit.” (Principles of Great Teaching, Project-Based Learning, and Ancient Rome: Rise of an Empire). As a result of these courses,he is looking to focus more on building skills this year in order to empower students with 21st century skills such as collaboration, presentation, and critical thinking. His goals for the year will involve teaching content through more project-based and inquiry-based learning. All in all, it was a great summer!
8th grade World History I teachers worked hard on launching a new field trip. The trip will take the students to the Worcester Art Museum. They are excited to introduce this trip which will allow students to view art from Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Students will also watch a tremendous interactive presentation about medieval armor. In addition, students will create personal medieval art. This will be an incredible addition to the Middle Ages unit. In addition to working with his 6th and 8th grade colleagues, John Sullivan enjoyed catching up with family and friends and saw James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt at Fenway Park.
Special Education
The Special Education department was very busy this summer! They mixed all sorts of travel and fun, with time for classes and professional development. It is hard to summarize all the amazing things they did...but here goes… Our department spent time in the ESY program, taking classes on ADHD, Social Thinking, Empowering Adolescents and Dealing with Difficult Parents. They completed lesson plans on Project Happiness, practiced puppy training, reviewed Wilson materials, acclimated to new jobs and completed their 500 practicum hours. However, they still managed to spend time with family and friends, see their baby’s first steps, read some good books, go to concerts and go on some amazing trips! Trips included- a Bermuda Cruise, Northern California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, JFK Library, Castle Island, Cape Cod, Adirondack Mountains, The Rocky Mountains, Six Flags and Mystic CT...just to name a few! :)
Wellness
Wellness Content Specialist Susan Cowell worked over the summer with Dave and Stephanie Worthley analyzing data from the 2016 MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey. Blake and MHS administrators will be discussing the results this fall, and following that information will be available for the community. Stay tuned for more in the September 2017 blog.
Mrs. Cowell also met this summer with School Resource Officer Michelle Bento, and Anne Gilligan, from the MA Dept of Education to discuss a variety of health education curricula designed to help students develop the social emotional competencies described in the Guidance section above. Follow up meetings are being held to determine which curricula best match our students’ needs based upon the 2016 MWAHS results.
Physical Education and Health teacher, Kathleen McCullough, took a number of graduate courses this summer such as “Create and Captivate: Using Online Presentations”, “Mindful Leadership in Schools”, “Effective Classroom Management”, “Courage to Care: Working with At-Risk Students” and “What Great Teachers Do.” These courses helped Kathleen gain knowledge and leadership skills which will in enhance her Health and Physical curricula.
Phys Ed and Health Teacher, Tom Woods, also took a number of graduate courses. Focusing on the Health content especially, his courses were titled “Health Self Esteem”, “Why Gender Matters in Education”, “Prevention and Intervention of Bullying” as well as two courses focusing on lifelong wellness for both teachers and students. Tom is excited to incorporate much of what he learned in these classes into his daily routines in both the gymnasium and the classroom. Tom also took some time to begin clearing paths and installing disc golf baskets in the schools’ surrounding property so as to incorporate disc golf into the Physical Education curriculum. His hope is that this will also encourage students to enjoy a new outdoor physical activity in their spare time.
World Language
It has been a busy summer for everyone in the World Language department. We excited to be back and ready to be with our students, but it was a summer of learning, enrichment and reflection for all.
Maura Batts enjoyed 2 classes in educational leadership digging deep into Difficult Conversations and Emotional Intelligence! Beyond that she enjoyed Martha’s Vineyard, Narragansett and Hershey Park with her family. Susie Boulos travelled to Mexico and explored the Mayan culture with her husband. She also enjoyed many afternoons with her nieces and nephews, got to know her dog, Piper! She also served at summer camp with 600 amazing teens from around New England.
Heather Gonzalez volunteered with a local immigrant organization and helped with translating. She also participated in four days of the Proficiency Academy sponsored by MAFLA (Massachusetts Foreign Language Association) for World Language teachers at Westfield State. Sam Cowell connected with family, friends, and 200 local kids ages 5-12 at Franklin Country Day Camp as the Boating area counselor.
Nicki Welling visited Nantucket, Vermont and Cape Cod, and also spent a week spent visiting a friend in Illinois with her daughter. She loved relaxing at home with her family! Elaine Liu worked for StarTalk Chinese program at Umass Boston as instructional lead as well as instructor for level III class. She also participated StarTalk Umass Boston teachers training program.
Eileen Buckham hosted a French student from Chantilly, France for the end of the school year and the first part of summer; she enjoyed showing her the historical sites of New England, and our American tradition of the 4th of July. She also enjoyed time on Martha’s Vineyard, relaxing, and catching up with family and friends. Content Specialist Ellen Toubman participated in an OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) workshop sponsored by ACTFL (American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages), one of the requirements for becoming a certified interviewer and rater for ACTFL She also enjoyed an amazing trip to Israel and Jordan and lots of time reading and enjoying the outdoors.