Our FIRST IIE Variety Show!

Day One of IIE ended with our first ever inter-island variety show! After the overwhelming success of our "Monhegan's Got Talent" variety show last spring I knew we were going to have to do something similar at IIE and thank goodness we did because it was one of the highlights of the two day event. I think it may have tied with Capture the Flag... which is pretty remarkable.

The show was kicked off by the teachers doing the infamous "banana pudding skit". The Monhegan School did this skit two years ago at an improv night we hosted at our school and let me just say it is laugh out loud funny and the teachers were just a riot (especially newbie Mr. Duncan from Matinicus! Who knew how fabulous he is at improv!?)

Time for the youngers to dazzle us with a number song!

A boy after my own heart, he did an Elvis impersonation that gave me a run for my money!

Islesford school wowing the crowd with their singing talent.

We were SO lucky that the famous "Flash Mob" made an appearence and showed the kids how to bust a move, Micheal Jackson style!

And a surprise performance by a very talented Frenchboro pianist!

Some Matinicus joke tellers!

And then of course Monhegan... we our well known "Little People Skit". It was disgusting and hilarious all at the same time.

If you want to see us in all our glory watch the video here:

Quinn & Jessie's "Little People" Act!

By the end of the night everyone had a talent and there were a lot of impromptu acts like the "belly roller" and the dangerous "Bible Jumpers!" (You just had to be there for that one!)

Oh, and did I mention that we had judges!? We did. They were fabulous and gave out the awards after a pretty entertaining evening.

Flash Mob received their own personal award for being so dang awesome!

The teachers won an award to for their silly skit... I was the director so I got to hold the special award!

After the fabulous chaos of the evening our dear friend Mike came to lead the group in a quiet meditation so we would be relaxed as we

to bed for the night.

It was the perfect end to the perfect day.

INTER-ISLAND EVENT 2010: MONHEGAN SYTLE! (Day 1)

So the time finally came for IIE on Monhegan. We had worked long and hard preparing for this day and we were SO stinkin' excited (and somewhat paniced ... well, speaking for myself) so we were just so happy to see all of the familar faces of students, teachers, and parents arriving on the boat!

Our very small school waiting on the wharf to greet the three other schools who came for Inter-Island Event!

We had trucks ready and waiting to load all of the schools luggage and truck it to the Mooring Chain where we were camping out over night!

Tents were set up ...

Lots and lots of tents!

Then kids got to eat their bagged lunches they brought with them.

After a quick lunch it started to rain out and we could hear thunder (this meant MAJOR panic for event organizer!) However the rain only lasted for the 10 minutes we went inside to do our name game icebreaker!

Then we came outside to go over the schedule for the day and have the kids make their name tags (P.S. The name tags were a HUGE hit!)

Ready! Set! Break! It was time to head to the kids workshop sessions!

The workshops were hour long activities that different people in our community offered to do with a small group of kids. The kids got to sign up for the workshops of their choice and I have to say we had some pretty cool workshops.

Jes Stevens did a tour and scavenger hunt down at the shipwreck. It was cool to see how excited the kids from the other island got about our shipwreck since we, on Monhegan, often take forgranted how unique a shipwreck on island actually is!

Angela had a bagel making workshop at her house. The parents loved this workshop as much as the kids did!

The bagels that were made at this workshop were actually served at our breakfast the next morning! How perfect is that.

Donna C. hosted a fabulous candle-making workshop at her house. The students carefully listening to instructions!

And then it was hands on!

I offered a "improv" workshop where did some dramatic warm-ups for our body and mind and then play some hilarious theater games to get the creative juices flowing.

Ever see "Whose Line is it Anyway?" The kids are participating in the infamous "Party Quirks" game from that show. So stinkin' funny.

Anne did a blogging workshop for kids to set up their own blog in hopes that at somepoint all our island kids can be blogging with eachother!

After our workshop session it was time to regroup at school for bathroom breaks and snacks! Angela made DELICIOUS home-made french fries from our school-grown potatoes. THEY WERE A HIT!

And next... the most important part of the day, or really the whole IIE... CAPTURE THE FLAG! Red team vs. Blue team. The bandanas were very helpful and made everyone on the field look pretty stinkin' stylish.

Red team ruled the field! I was on blue. We totally lost... but we had GREAT time spirit.

After kickball it was time for our potluck dinner. Each island was asked to bring either salads, desserts, or bread to contribute to the dinner and then the Monhegan community came to dinner with the main courses! I had dreams for weeks before IIE about how we would not have enough food... but we had plenty and it was all DELICIOUS!

The kids burned off all their dinner with lots of outdoor play. They thought our sliding rock was the coolest thing they had ever seen. Who needs a playgroud when you have a big, huge, sliding rock.

Inter-Island Event Preparations!

This year was Monhegan's turn to host the annual Inter-Island Event! What is Inter-Island Event, (or as we call it IIE) you ask? It is only the most spectacular event that involves the five Down East outer islands one and two room schools! Each year a different island hosts the event and invites teachers, students, and parents from the other participating schools to their island for 24 hours of pure fun and chaos. When I agreed last Spring to organized this years event I knew it was going to be A LOT of work, especially with only two kids to help, but little did I realize how much fun we were going to have!

As soon as school started in September we hit the ground running preparing for the big event. We had lots of scheduling, organizing, and planning to do. We created a virtual notebook online for schools to view our plans and sign up for different elements of the event which was very helpful. The boys were SO enthusiastic about all the planning which made it all the more fun. It was nice to have the IIE to focus on at the beginning of the year because it is hard to keep things fun and fresh at the beginning of a year with two brothers who you have happened to have taught for the last three years!

Along with all the planning and scheduling we needed to do we also had some creative projects we wanted to complete in time for IIE.

The first project was to create a mural in our school of a map of the coast of Maine that showcased the five outer islands that would be present at IIE.

The five outer islands we are talking about are: Monhegan, Matinicus, Isle Au Haut, Frenchboro, and Islesford (which is also known as Little Cranberry Island!)

We used magazine clippings, paint, sparkles, and lots of glue to jazz up the mural and show our community of islands.

The finished product was awesome and it was such a great backdrop for our IIE!

Our next creative project to work on was to tie-dye bandanas that we would use for capture the flag at IIE.

Capture the Flag is a HUGE tradition at IIE! These island kids do not get many opportunities to play games with 20+ kids so you can see the reasoning behind such excitement for a pretty simple field game!

Can you guess which area of the table was Quinn's? He takes after his messy teacher.

We hung our gorgeous bandanas outside to dry. We made enough for team blue...

and team red!

We planned on having kids pick bandanas from a bag to keep the teams fair and random. We also planned on having people sign each other's bandanas at the end of IIE and then people would have a special IIE souvenir to take with them!

Thank goodness we had Anne around for IIE preparations! We needed all the help we could get!

One of our final creative projects was to make name-tags out of pieces of (Monhegan) wood that our dear friend Rusty cut up for us. Quinny drilled the holes, and we strung the wood with some yarn and wrote "IIE 2010" on the back of all the wood. We planned on using these necklaces as name-tags for the event and then the kids could keep them as another souvenir! I have to say I LOVE souvenirs!

Next year, IIE t-shirts!?

Blogging with Anne

I don't know if you know but we LOVE blogging at the Monhegan School... so much so that we are setting up yet another blog but this one we are sharing with five other island schools who are involved in what we are calling the Down East Islands TLC (Teaching and Learning Collaboration) Project! This project has developed from a grassroots type of movement (lead by teachers... of course!) in hopes to have island students in one and two room schools in the state of Maine working and collaborating together through face-to-face meetings and technology!

One piece of technology we hope to implement soon is the "Inter-Island School Blog!" I will update you when we have that blog up and running!

Our fabulous island fellow who is heading up this project is Anne! Anne came out to Monhegan the week of Inter-Island Event and set the boys up with their own blogs that they will hopefully get to use to assist them when collaborating with other island students.

It was exciting for the boys to pick out their own blog name and design their site. I can see a lot of GREAT potential for these blogs and I am hoping we can share some of those uses with you all!

So stay tuned... more blogging to come!

Our 20th BINGO!

Yep, it's true. Our school celebrated it's 20th BINGO last month (at least since I have been the teacher on island). It is pretty impressive if you think about it. 20 BINGO games means... thousands of BINGO numbers called, hundreds of BINGO prizes given out, dozens of cookies made, and 20+ individuals named as BINGO champions on our BINGO wall of fame!

September BINGO got off to a rockin' start with our now oldest student, Daltini giving the opening remarks and calling the first round.

We had a full house, which was awesome. Our BINGO theme? Back to school BINGO!

Quinn supervising Billy "BINGO" B. to make sure his so called "BINGO" is really valid. He won one round, not bad for the first game of the school year.

Quinn's turn to call... the prize at hand was a big plastic crayon that serves as a bank. Who doesn't need one of those!?

Anna won a round and ended up with this fabulous cheerleading uniform! Lucky duck.

View from the stage. Look at all those BINGO lovers.

Anna looking sharp.

Maya is very glad it is BINGO season once again... she loves cleaning up the fallen snacks, but hates it when she mistakes a fallen BINGO chip for a treat. Yuck.

We were very fortunate at this BINGO to have a whole slue of "knitting ladies" attend our event! They were very fun and kept us laughing with their enthusiasum for BINGO! Here Dalton check one of the super lucky knitting ladies who won THREE ROUNDS!

One VERY lucky knitting lady!

AND our THREE september BINGO champions! Too bad I only made one final prize! But all of them are now on the Monhegan School's BINGO wall of fame!

Jean visits!

We had our first visit from our guidance counselor Jean in September! It was great to see her after summer vacation. The boys always love when Jean visits for several reasons: 1. They love her. 2. She is a great listener. 3. She always brings snacks!

This year the program Jean is working on with the kids revolves around the idea of wholistic/holistic living... and taking care of all parts of yourself: body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

Jean did a nice job explaining the major concept of holistic living and what that can mean for the boys this year.

They then did an activitity where they drew outlines of their bodies and talk about the different areas in their bodies that need special/specific care and what that kind of care looks like... this program will fit very nicely into our human body unit in the spring!