Touch Blue Finale!

As you may remember our school has been participating in a virtual inter-island book club with four other island schools. We read the book Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord. For the last month our five schools have taken turns "hosting" the book club by posting discussion questions on our groups wiki and planning activities for the students to participate in. We finished the book at the beginning of December and had all the students create a final project or paper that they could present to the rest of the students.

We were all very excited to have our final collaborative meeting through the video conferencing units with three of the other island schools. (we missed you Isle Au Haut!)

It was so amazing to see all our island friends on the big screen! Above is Cliff Island!

And look... it is the Matinicus Island School!!!

And Islesford!!!

We got to spend some time showing one another our final projects for Touch Blue.

There were some pretty cool projects!

Look at this stinkin' cool collage!

And this awesome character map!

Quinn and Dalton got to facilitate the meeting. There are such great leaders in our collaboration project. Makes me very proud.

We ended our meeting with a round of Touch Blue trivia which Dalton led. He was like a little Bob Barker!

We are so lucky to have such great schools to be collaboration with and such awesome technology that lets us work together!

Christmas Tree Hunting

And yet another Christmas tradition... searching for our school's Christmas tree! We were excited for Margaret to join us this year for our tree hunting adventure. Of course it was FREEZING outside so we bundled up and headed out in search for our perfect tree.

We had lots of detours for ice stomping and snow crunching.

M & M did a lot of racing!

Last year we got our tree from Cathedral Woods... so this year we went searching off the Red Ribbon Trail.

Where oh where could our little tree be??

Of course as the oldest student it was up to Dalton to find our perfect tree... and cut it down.

Got it!

Mission accomplished... next stop: Ice Pond

We did some scientific testing (AKA throwing big rocks onto the ice) to see how much longer until we can skate.

We hypothesize that it will be ready for us after Christmas!

Back to school we go.

Need to trim the tree... literally.

A little team work to get our very thin tree into the very big tree stand.

Our totally perfect imperfect tree!

Christmas Play Flash Back!

I have had lots of request to be sure to post the video of this year's Christmas play to the blog... It has taken me a long time to figure out how to put larger videos on the blog but I finally figured it out...

So before I put up this year's Christmas play let's go back in time a year to LAST year's play.... one of my all time favorites:

THE UNITED STATES OF CHRISTMAS!!!!

There are two parts so be sure to watch both! Can you believe how much they have all changed in just a year. Makes me miss Gabbers and Wyatt so much!

Award winning, wouldn't you say!?

STORMS equipment!

We had an early Christmas at school after I returned from a weekend conference to learn about the STORMS project that is being sponsored by the Island Institute! STORMS stands for Students and Teachers Observing and Recording Meteorological Systems (say that ten times fast!) and it is a one year program that we are going to take part with (along with some of our other island schools partners... can you say collaboration!?)

I let the boys open the two big boxes I brought back with me from the conference! All of the equipment is given to participating schools by the Island Institute! (THANK YOU!)

What middle school boys wouldn't like a box filled with cool technological stuff!

YES! A new GPS!

AND A COMPLETE WEATHER STATION! Tooooo cool.

Then there was Quinn who was excited about the packaging that the weather station came in because that piece of cardboard was going to be "perfect!" for his lego guys. Oh Quinny.

Dalton was ALLL about setting up the weather station. However we were going to have to wait until this little thing called the Christmas play was done and over with.

Quinn figured out the temperature and humidity with ease thanks to this new thermometer!

Both of the guys can't wait to jump into our STORMS project after vacation!

Virtual Writer's Workshop!

As you know we have been doing a WHOLE lot of virtual collaboration this year at school. We added yet another collaboration project to the mix by have the students of Monhegan and Islesford work collaboratively in writing groups to write persuasive essays!

We have two writing groups, one which I am responsible for and one that my good friend and colleague on Islesford is responsible for!

We have the kids share their writing in sections to their entire group through their new collaborative email accounts (thanks Anne!)

Then the get and give feedback and improve their writing virtually!

Often time while the kids are sending emails they also get the chance to "gchat" with their peers on the other islands! This picture shows Quinn talking to SIX other people while he is sending out his emails!

It is hard not to be happy when you know you are working with our buddies on Islesford!

Holiday Crafts

It sure has been fun to have a pre-schooler at school during the holiday season! We get to do all kinds of fun and creative holiday crafts that I haven't really done for a while since the boys are getting older and older.

Our first craft was an "Count Down" to Christmas calendar that we made out of a Christmas Tree. Not only is it adorable but it was fun to work with all the numbers and put them in order for the countdown.

Miss M decorated the tree and painted the ornaments that we would write the numbers on for the count-down.

Then we used velcro to put the number ornaments on the tree!

The other holiday craft we made was the traditional paper plate wreath! I remember making these in school and I LOVED it.

Watching all this crafting Mr. Q got in on the holiday decorating.

He used his break time to decorate this pretty spiffy Christmas tree light.

We also ended up making some ornaments for the Black Duck tree. Quinn made some spectacular stockings.

I made a peace wreath and Maya made herself in a stocking. It is amazing what those big paws are capable of.

And Daltini made this lovely tree.

Ah, holidays.

The Annual Holiday Card

So, it is the holiday season at the Monhegan School which mean lots of traditions. One tradition I have really enjoyed over the last four years is sending out the annual "Monhegan School Christmas Card" to all of our community on and off island. We have such AMAZING support for our school from SO many people it is nice to send out a card every year wishing our fabulous community a happy holidays.

First we make a list of everyone on island we need to send a card to. Then we make our inshore list. We ordered 50 cards this year and used them ALL up! So sorry to anyone we didn't get one out too. We just so lucky to have SO many people we love!!

Next the boys address ALL the envelopes... I am happy to oversee the project. I figure it is yet another life lesson we offer at the Monhegan School... how to stuff envelopes and address them.

It use to be that the boys would put the stamp in the wrong corner or address the evelopes upside down. We have come a long way I think!

So for all of you who we were unable to send a card to... here it is!

And on behalf of the Monhegan School, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!