It's been awhile... let me catch you up!

Okay, so I am feeling very guilty for lack of posting last week. It was kind of a crazy! At the beginning of the week we had a Monhegan Emergency! Our poor little school puppy, Maya, ended up getting sick at school on Monday and on Tuesday I had to rush her inshore to the vet. She ended up being fine... but right away it caused our week to be pretty darn funky!

Little Maya with all her "get well" cards from the kids. They made her feel special!

We ended up working a lot on our ecosystem projects last week. We are creating life like animals to go in our life sized ecosystems! Let me tell you, these animals are awesome. We have a fox, polar bear, tiger, cheetah, and jaguar in our classroom right now! And the amazing thing is, they all get along!

Arlo sculpting his polar bear!

Gabe making his snake!

Jorgie looking at her little fox. Her name is Foxy!

Lots of research and discussion to make the animals just right!

We ended the week with a big, class writer's workshop! It was fun having all the kids share their most recent writing. We had everything from Jorgie's story about a "Journal of a Maya" to Quinn and Arlo's stories about waking up as the president, to Gabe and Dalton's action packed narrative pieces! The kids were great listeners and gave very encouraging feedback. I was a proud teacher, as usual.

Jorgie reading her story entitled, "A Dairy of a Maya." 

Quinn's story was about being the president and meeting a talking German Shepard who is really funny.

Arlo's piece was about being the president and having a food fight with a bunch of robotic dogs!

This is what happens when you put Quinn in charge of taking a picture of Dalton reading. Dalton's story was so descriptive it took up six pages!

Gabe reading his intense piece... it was like something out of a thriller movie!

Overall, it was a hectic, crazy, and terrific week...

Stay tuned for BINGO pictures!

Friday Art

We ended a hectic week with a fantastic art class lead by our FANTASTIC art teacher... Donna! What I love about art class is that we can turn on the classical music, tune out the world, and just do our own thing. Donna had some great "assignments" for us to work on today...

The first was just to draw a picture with a circle within a circle, within a circle, within a circle... and so on. 

Then we combined them to create an amazing mural.

Then we made figures with half calm colors and half crazy colors! It was such fun!

Virtual Schools! How cool are we!?

I can't tell you how excited I am about some of the stuff we have been doing in our school lately! For two weeks now our middle schoolers have had a "virtual" writing class with the middle schoolers from Isleford School! We use skype to video conference with them and then we use noteshare to share our writing! The fantastic teacher on Isleford, Lindsay, and I get to co-teach! It is fun for everyone involved! I am telling you, it is just the coolest thing ever!

Our big hope is that our schools can start having classes with each other on a DAILY basis! We are going to start having a "virtual" after school program with Isleford as well! I believe we are on the virtual wave of the future!

My boys on Monhegan!

The fantastic students of Isleford! (This is what we can see on our computer screen!)

Skyping is so cool that Rob and Donna decided to do it with each other in the same school!

Pom-Poms Craze!

Time to make...

the pom-poms?

It's pom-pom mania!

Pom-Poms took over the Monhegan School yesterday! While the middle schoolers were skyping with Islesford School (more on that later) the rest of our school were becoming our very own pom-pom factory! Who knew that pom-poms could create such excitement!

Pom-pons were made for mothers, fathers, brothers, dogs, and cats! I wouldn't be surprised if soon everyone on Monhegan had their own pom-pom made by a Monhegan student! They are easy and fun to make! Goodness we love that we have Donna, our own pom-pom expert!

Arlo's pom-poms!

That is one proud pom-pom maker!

The youngers became the expert on pom-poms, so they got to teach the olders!

Obama likes to watch pom-pom making!

Maya loves her pom-pom!

Schooner's pom-pom makes him look regal!

Even I got my very own pom-pom (Thanks Donna!)

Skating!

Gearing up!

Our superintendent even got to come down for "gym class!"

A little help is always crucial when skating!

Tara looks like Batwoman on those skates!

We had yet another "community gym class!" We are so lucky to have such a rockin' community who actually comes out for gym! This time is was skating on the ice pond! We had a blast passing around hockey pucks, pulling the little ones on the sleds, playing with the dogs, and learning a new game taught by the middle schoolers! The ice was perfect for skating! 

A little hockey action!

Switching sticks! I wanted pink!

Big, bad goalie!

I think Maya was the best goalie of all!

Who wouldn't want to be pulled around by the pug brothers!?

It was just one of those perfect kind of days.

Around the school house...

Well, it is February! I can't believe how fast it is all flying by! January came and went so quickly, I think I am still in a state of shock. Traditionally, February is when we all start driving one another crazy at school. The weather gets colder, the work gets hard, and we all just start to get a little crazier. I know it is only February 4th, but I have this inner sense that it is going to be the best February this school has seen in a while. We have a lot to look forward to... ocarinas, ecosystem projects, February BINGO, Quinn's Birthday, a visit from our guidance councilor, and our SUGARLOAF trip!

Even still, it can be challenging to find the positive in our isolated school... so for this blog I would like to leave you with some of the little things around our school house that makes us smile...

Our "floating heads/ new year's resolutions" mobiles... can you guess who is who?

An original story by a very famous author about a very famous dog!

My favorite picture from the Christmas play that the Bracy family sent us in the mail!

A little first grade mathmatician learning how to REGROUP as she adds! She is such a smarty pants. (And I also love the fact that she made a very stylish scarf out of a piece of cloth that Maya likes to play with!)

The fourth graders rocking it out during math class! I so LOVE that we have TWO fourth graders!

Count down until Quinn's birthday!

Our tie dye curtains brighten up any gray day!

A really awesome art project Donna did with the kids!

You get to mismatch the tops and the bottoms!

And of course, BONGOS, who always knows how to make all of us smile and usually laugh out loud!

We are a lucky school to have so much to smile about!