Sledding!

We have gotten a lot of snow on island the last couple of weeks! This past Friday it was time to utilize this beautiful, white, fluffy powder!!! It was sledding for gym!

Look how I got to travel! Go Quinny, GO!

Bella and Scout were excited to be invited to gym class!

This was the peanut gallery!

Quinn got to try out Donna's sled! It sure is fast.

Everyone was zooming by so fast it was hard to take pictures!

Donna and her boys.

Millie wasn't so sure what to think about the whole sledding idea.

This was right before Jessie went into the ditch... again.

Quinn on his belly.

Jessie holding up the rear... with a little golden fur ball not too far behind!

Field Trip... to the Teacher's House!

As I mentioned earlier we did not have internet at our school for three days last week. We managed to get by and do work that did not involve the internet for two full days but by Friday there were things we NEEDED to do! It is hard to collaborate with all of our island buddies without internet! So... we took a little field trip... to the teacher's house!

Off we go... we do love our field trips. Donna saw the boys walking through town with their little laptop cases and thought they looked like mini executive heading to the office.

My kitchen table makes an EXCELLENT work space. Trust me, I know.

When it was time for break we just HAD to utilize the fact that I had hot cocoa and freshly made cookies at my house.

We moved to the living room for break. Look at these two love bugs!!

Bella sure would have liked it if Dalton shared.

PUPPY KISSES!

Bella kept getting closer and closer to Mr. D.

SYMBA! This is your kingdom! (Insert circle of life music!)

After break it was back to work... blogging, wiki updates, and emailing our final persuasive papers!

Even Millie got some work done!

Business Plans!

We FINALLY wrapped up our economics unit in social studies this week. The boys final assessment was to develop a business plan to fulfill a scarcity they believed existed on Monhegan. They emailed the community to get feedback the scarcities they observed on Monhegan and used the information they gathered from the community to choose which business they would develop for their plan.

Dalton decided to develop a plan for a mechanic business! As Dalton said, "If you just look around the island and see all the run down and broken trucks you KNOW their is a need for my business."

Quinn chose to create a business called "Islander's Lounge" which is a place where people (not JUST islanders) could come and hang out after a "long day's work." He would have arcade games and big tv and serve "snack foods" such as onion rings and buffalo wings!

The boys had to figure out what factors of production they would need to open/run their businesses. They needed to write out where, how, and when they would create/purchase/market and distribute their goods and services.

They also wrote out a "costumer profile" of who they are trying to attract and how they will fill the needs of their intended costumer. Lastly they needed to compare their business to a similar business inshore and write out the overall trends of business like theirs in the State of Maine.

Finally they had to present all of their information about their business plan on a three panel display using colors and images that represent their business. Quinn had a very colorful, playful theme for his business which was fitting for a fun lounge where people go to have a good time.

Dalton's logo for his business "Covered in Grease" Mechanics.

The boys did a terrific job with their plans and it was pretty exciting to imagine creating your own business on Monhegan but also a good lesson of what it REALLY takes to run a business not only on our island, but anywhere.

This week we will be presenting our business plans to the other islands and vice-versa! We cannot wait to find out what the other island students dreamed up for their business plans!

Another totally NOT normal week!

Last week should have just been a normal five day week... but I don't think we really believe in normal at our school. So instead this is how it went down...

Monday was just a half day with Quinn and I. It was the coldest day of the year thus far. And I mean COLD!

Dalton was out sick and then we had a school board meeting in which our heat went out... not a great thing on the coldest day of the year.

Tuesday... Dalton was back, but Quinn was not. It was his turn to get the Burrough flu. We had a writer in residence, Eva Murray come and "observe" our school and talk with D about non-fiction writing. Tuesday was also the day our internet went out. Neat. At least we had heat again.

Wednesday: Still no Quinn... or internet.

So it was just Dalton and the puppies and some word processing!

Quinn came back on Thursday! YAY! But our internet did not come back until Friday afternoon. BOO!

We made the most of it though. That is just what we do.

Dog days of winter....

Have I mentioned that we love our dogs? The two weeks that we went without a dog at school was pretty stinkin' dreadful. Dogs just always make things better. At our school our dogs are our entertainment, our pillows, our teachers, our students, our friends, our snuggle buddies, and our joy! As you can see from all of our photos they are often our inspiration for MANY photos! Bella, our beautiful black lab, is going to have to head home after her two week Monhegan vacation! We are going to miss her, we hope she comes back soon. Millie, however, is here to stay, but she is growing like weed!

Puppy love.

Hanging on the bean bags.

Sleepy girl. School is exhausting.

Bella just blends in with the bean bag.

Little one and her new duck from Donga, Schooner, and Scout.

She is ready for school in her little sweater.

Hugs.

I mean, can you even stand it?

Everyone wishes they could fit into the doggie bed.

Reading buddies.

Thank GOODNESS for dogs.

Print-Making!

We love art at the Monhegan School... this is for several reasons:

1. Art is awesome!

2. We get to do really creative projects that let us "think outside the box" and be ourselves.

3. We usually listen to music during art.

4. WE HAVE THE BEST ART TEACHER IN THE WORLD (Donga!)

Donna has been working with Dalton after school on printmaking and she let Quinn and I join in on the fun this past week in art class.

We were given print boards to carve our designs in. It was a really cool process because you had to be aware of every carve you made and that when you printed your design the places you carve out would actually be white and the places that were not carve would be black from the ink.

After we carved it was time to add the ink. This was a bit messy but still awesome!

Here is Donna's carving for her print... I bet now you know why she is our art teacher.

My carving...

Quinn's turn with the ink...

As I said... it was messy. But Quinn always seems to take messy to a whole other level.

Quinn's final print.

Donna's piece.

My final prints... Donna printed them for me!

Dalton's print!

We are thinking about printing some of our prints on tote bags and selling them as a fundraiser! What do you think? Any requests!!?