West Leadership Weekly Round Up: October 29th - November 2nd

Hi all!

We had a fun and busy week here with both Halloween and Dia de los Muertos celebrations taking place on Wednesday and Thursday!

Traditional dancing during Day of the Dead on Thursday

We started the week on Monday and Tuesday with our regular grade checks with our mentors/mentees. Students then met with teachers for them to complete missing and late work. From there we had our high school students complete the annual YoBD survey which was pretty quick and easy. After this we started discussing Emotions and began this conversation with an activity: Web of Emotions. On a piece of poster paper, a emotion was listed and then students were asked to write down everything they associate with that emotion. We had quite a few interesting examples - some reasonable, some funny, and some questionable...it was certainly a fun and interesting conversation about what makes us happy, angry, sad, fearful, etc.

Wednesday was Halloween and the school asked the students to keep it low key since we had so much going on during the Day of the Dead on Thursday. That said, our YESS classes still made sure to have fun by having a small Halloween party. I brought in plates, cups, some soda, and some chips and salsa for us to get started. Students contributed with additional sugary sweets.

Parade through the hallways during Day of the Dead on Thursday

Thursday our classes were sidelined due to the Day of the Dead activities. We were able to sign students up for Chocolate, Storytelling, and then of course the Parade and Dancing. Students really enjoyed checking out the altars that were on display (including Ms. Patricia's!) and had a good time watching the dancing and performances - it was a really fun day for everyone.

Friday we finished the week with a conversation on Negativity Bias and the 3 to 1 ratio of negative to positive thoughts. I asked students to write down 9 positive things about themselves and share something positive about another classmate so we could end the week on an uplifting note.

Another fun week here at WLA! Next week we will continue our focus on grades and getting them up before the semester as well as starting our discussions on gratitude. See ya then! -Ben