I have missed 7 days of Slicing, but I'm coming back - I can do hard things, and I know consistently writing is something I value, learn from and love - so many good reasons to get back at it.

WHAT have I been doing, if not Slicing?

1. I got my second vaccine. All was easy-breezy the first 18 hours, but day two I was a feverish, achy, sniffling, sore-arm mess. Then, day three: a bounce back. Every sniffle was worth it. Just 10 more days to go, and I will be looking for someone to hug.

2. My team and I curated and wrote content for an early learning website that is going live! Getting this site launched has taught me a ton about web design (how easy it is AND how hard it is). Check it out, especially if you love a PreK or K child: yourcubby.org

3. Yourcubby.org will go live at a conference for Illinois kindergarten teachers that I've been the lead planner on. We opened with a keynote from Kristi Mraz yesterday, and she did not disappoint. Her strong messaging on play, equity and advocacy were amazing (I tweeted quite a bit of it: @lvahey). Working with her over the past 4 months was powerful, as well (another Slice on that learning to come). Today, there were seven concurrent sessions, and I was able to sit in on the session by Alexis Lauricella and Shina Alade, really digging deep into screens, young children and how thoughtful we absolutely must be - kids' brains are counting on us! I especially loved thinking about the difference between interactive (working on a tablet) and receptive (watching a video) content. Both can be effective tools for learning, and we need to consider how we use them. Learn more about this work here: https://teccenter.erikson.edu/

4. I led three of my grad students through several of the activities in Elena Aguilar's book Onward. Unpacking values and resilience together taught me so much about them, and gave ME the chance to revisit my own values. (Yes, a Slice seed here, too.)

5. Finally: I finished a writing fellowship at the OpEd Project, online with about 35 other participants. This time (Friday nights, online, pen-in-hand) taught me so much: about the power of my voice, who is an expert (hint: we are!), the need for stories AND numbers, the invisible "rules" of who gets published. I have much more to share on this experience, too (for sure: more for my Slice idea list).

It's late.

But I'm back! 

And it feels oh-so good to have not given up. 

                        

Kristi teaching us about Stuart Brown's "play personalities" - learn more here: https://caps.umich.edu/article/your-play-personality