TLC Student Council Campaigns!

October 2012

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney weren't the only ones busy campaigning this fall to be elected into office! The students of the TLC have been working hard for the past two weeks on their campaigns for student council and on October 16th all the TLC schools came together on the "Polyberg" to see everyone's campaigning skills in action!

The TLC student council was created last year and was a HUGE success! So, everyone was excited for another year of fun and excitement with student council, starting with the campaigns! All students, third grade and up, are welcomed and ENCOURAGED to join the student council!

Here is the Matinicus School waiting for the campaigning to begin! There are lots of "elected" positions that students can run for within student council including president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, public relations representative, PTC (parent, teacher, community) group representative, and individual school representatives!

Here is the Frenchboro School, which is the newest member of our TLC and who also has FOUR students who are all old enough to be in student council and all FOUR are going to participate! Students who do not want to run for a certain position for student council are still welcomed and WANTED in the group! Every voice counts and is important in our TLC student council!

 Once we welcomed everyone to the campaign day and explained the procedure for campaigning we had each of the students "running for office" share their campaigns with the rest of the group!

Many of the kids created imovies and other types of presentations that they were able to show over the "Polyberg" units! First up we had this fourth grader from the Ashley Bryan School share her campaign for Public Relations Representative!

I love all the testimonials she got from her classmates! 

Here the students and teacher at the Monhegan School are thoroughly enjoying all the campaigns!

I loved the official tie on this campaign supporter! Too cute.

We had two other candidates who ran for PR representatives! All of their campaigns were fabulous! 

One of the students from Frenchboro had puppets endorse him for "Frenchboro School Representative!"

See for yourself!

This fifth grader from the Ashley Bryan School ran against herself in the race to be the TLC student council secretary! Her campaign was AWESOME! I think she is going to win against herself for SURE!

Here is Austin's campaign for treasurer! Sounds like he would do a great job! BUT he is running against from another great candidate from the Ashley Bryan School! So many fabulous candidates to choose from!

This fourth grader from Cliff Island was running to be student council VICE president! 

Eliza 4 VP!!! on Prezi

She made an awesome "prezi" for her campaign! Too cool! She ran against another student from Isle au Haut and a student from Monhegan! It was going to be a tight race for sure!

The last students to share their campaigns were those running to be the TLC student council PRESIDENT! The two oldest students in the TLC were running against each other for this prestigious position! Quinn on Monhegan shared his campaign first!

He created a really fabulous glog to go along with his campaign speech!

Then Emma from Matinicus shared her campaign speech with the group! She had a pink podium to speak from and she talked about how she would make a good president because she was the TLC student council vice president last year and now understands what it takes to be a good leader. She did a wonderful job!

After the group heard everyone's campaign it was time to VOTE! Our fabulous TLC coordinator, Elise created official TLC ballots for all the kids to vote with and they were to cast their ballots by 9am the following day and we would then announce the election results at 10:45am via the "Polyberg!"

Before everyone left the campaign meeting we had one more very important piece of business to cover... our CAMPAIGN DAY DANCE PARTY! Listen closely to the words of the song... it is called "Election Rap!" 

Vote early! Vote often! Can't wait to find out the results of this FABULOUS TLC election!

First Book Groups of the 2012-2013 School Year

October 2012

 

Our TLC schools started their FIRST book groups of the year in mid-October! Book groups are one of our most successful faucets of the TLC because it allows our students to work with other kids who are similar to their learning level and often style! ALSO, our students are often taught by different teachers, not just their own AND teachers get the opportunity to teach a group of students who are at the similar learning level and really focus on that one group instead of trying to juggle many grade levels and learning abilities at the same time! In short... our TLC book groups are pure genius in our eyes!

The teacher on Monhegan and one of the teachers on Cliff Island are co-leading the youngest book group, who all meet on the "Polyberg" each week!

Here are two of the "youngers" at the Ashley Bryan School who are being taught by two teachers that are NOT on their islands! Pretty cool! Along with these kids, the youngers' book group has three students from Cliff, two students from Frenchboro, one student from Matinicus, and one student from Monhegan!

At their first meeting the "youngers" brainstormed names of what they wanted to call their book group. That is quite the list of awesome names!

The oldest book group includes this seventh grader from Monhegan along with two students from Frenchboro and another student from Matinicus!

The olders are skyping with their book group, which is lead by the teacher on Frenchboro!

This "middles" group is being co-lead by one of the teachers from the Ashley Bryan School and the teacher on Matinicus!

The teachers have set up "wikis" for the different book groups to use to see their weekly reading and writing assignments and to post answers to discussion questions they have each week about their books!

For the first week of book groups the kids get the chance to actually choose what book they want to read as a group! The TLC sure does believe in a democractic classroom... the kids vote on the book choices after they have done a little background research about each of the books.

This fourth grader at the Ashley Bryan School is skyping with her book group which is made up of two students from Isle au Haut, one student from Cliff, and one student from Matinicus! Their book group teacher is Mr. H from Cliff Island!

They are trying to choose whether to read "Class President" OR "The Lemonade Crime!" Both sound like pretty fun reads to me!!!

The last book group is lead by one of the teacers from the Ashley Bryan School and the teacher on Isle au Haut. They have kids from ABS, Isle au Haut, and Frenchboro in their group!

Here is their book group wiki and all the fun books they are going to choose!

Looks like is going to be another group trimester of books groups for the students of the TLC! Better get reading everyone!

Trip to Frenchboro

October 2012

 Millie and I were pretty PUMPED to head out to see our newest addition to the TLC, the FRENCHBORO SCHOOL for a special visit! Frenchboro just joined the TLC this year! In the past the Frenchboro School joined the TLC for some of our field trips and always attended inter-island event, but this is the first year they are taking part in the bulk of the TLC activities and we all couldn't be happier!

 We drove up in the wee hours of the morning to catch the State Ferry and head to Frenchboro! Millie had her backpack and was ready to go! She could not WAIT to greet all those cute little Frenchboro kids!

We were greeted by the "youngers" and their teacher, Miss M! They helped me lug all my stuff up from the ferry to the truck! They were so helpful!

Look at those cuties! I think they were excited to have some school visitors.

When we arrived at school it was morning recess time! (GOOD TIMING ON MY PART!) I loveeeee recess!

When I went inside the school to drop off my stuff I immediately saw these fabulous prints the Frenchboro kids did with our new TLC coordinator, Elise, on her visit to Frenchboro the week before!

I also noticed this fabulous mural the Frenchboro kids created a few years back! Such talented little munchkins!

The kids came in from recess and we talked a bit about the TLC student council elections that were coming up. The four oldest Frenchboro students were all planning on participating in student council this year and two of them were planning on running for officer positions! I was SO excited. The kids had some work to do, which I was happy to help with. These are some pretty smart kids at this little island school!

After some hard work it was time for "gym class!" Man, was I lucky to be there on all days!? I LOVE gym class almost as much as I love recess!

Miss M. and her ed. tech Mrs. Becky asked if I would be willing to run gym class and of course I said YES! We played some of my favorite "run around and play" games... like "What Time is it Mr. Wolf!?"

And "Cats in the Corner!" which is a very strategic game! You can see here... major planning going on!

On the way back to school we played "Flash!" A favorite game that the TLC student leaders taught everyone at Inter-Island Event!

After our first day on Frenchboro we were beat! Millie was exhausted from all the playing and running and learning and laughing she did at school. We both needed to rest up to get ready for our second FULL day at school!

Millie rushed to school on our second day. She couldn't wait to see all her new best friends!

We joined everyone for morning meeting to start the day off right.

And then it was time for some morning yoga!

Millie was SUPER helpful during yoga!

That is some pure joy on the face of our TLC mascot!

 After a morning of state testing for the olders and writing and math work for the youngers we all joined together for outdoor recess!

Some of the kids taught me how to play this dragon/hula-hoop game that consisted of winging hula-hoops across the pavement as fast as humanly possible. Pretty fun if you ask me!

I also got to play some tennis with some of the other kids.

And watch this super cute kindergartner show off on the playground!

More tennis playing!

Millie was wicked good at retrieving all the tennis balls!

We got all our energy out and then headed back inside for a super exciting TLC technology lesson! All of the olders got a chance to set up their TLC emails for the very first time!!! They were all PUMPED and so was I! They learned how to log into their email accounts, add new contacts, and send an email! They also talked about email etiquette and what their school emails will be used for!

After their email lesson they had a lesson in google docs!

They all got a chance to write on a google doc and some of them even created google docs of their own!

Later in the day we had another technology lesson... this time they kids got to experiment with wikis. These guys had used wikis before but they had never had the opportunity to edit wikis.

They got a chance to add photos, text, and links to a wiki I created for them about lego robotics. These guys are going to be using wikis a bunch this year with their work with the TLC. They have already started using wikis for their TLC book groups!

At the end of our school day we had our final TLC tech-lesson! The topic...SKYPE! The kids were pumped to log into their own skype accounts, create contact lists and then test-call each other!

It was so cute and funny watching the kids all furiously calling one another and getting so flustered when they got more than one call!

This guy was out in the hallway skyping away and you kept hearing him say, "Wait, I have to put you on hold, I am getting another call!" 

I am pretty sure these guys would have skyped the whole afternoon if I let them!

But we still had one more activity to do before school got out!

IMPROV GAMES!

There is nothing more that I love to do with a bunch of kids to help them let out their inner-silliness then playing some improv games! A couple of years ago I visited the Frenchboro school with my students from Monhegan and we had a BLAST playing some of these games, so I thought we would do it again and boy did we have fun. 

Some of the Frenchboro kids are known for being rather timid and quiet but man, do they open up when we are working on improv! The games are just so fast moving and fun they don't have time to think about being shy!

Thanks gang, for being such great sports and learning so much technology AND having SO much fun with me.

Before Millie and I knew it, our time on Frenchboro had come to an end, but boy did we have a blast with this good-looking bunch of teachers and students!

We are SO lucky to have them as apart of our TLC family this year!!!

Silly faces!

Me and Millie were honored and privileged to be apart of the Frenchboro school, even for only a few days!

Hope to visit again soon! GO FRENCHBORO! GO TECHNOLOGY! GO FUN! GO TLC!

Inter-Island Event on Cliff Island - Day 3

September 2012

Our last morning together started out much the same as our first... with the kids playing outside the community hall before breakfast! I asked my favorite pair of comedians how they slept in their tents and they made these faces, explaining that they were frozen from the cold night of tenting out! Poor little dramatic buggers!

I also got a chance to document this Matinicus fourth grader hula-hooping for the VERY first time! What an exciting end to IIE for her! Way to go girl! You look like a natural!

Of course there was some more puppy loving time. Millie got to meet the stuffed animal version of herself, "pup-pup." 

I think "pup-pup" fell in love. Look at all of those sweet faces!

We had another quick breakfast and then it was time for our student leaders to share some of the fun games and activities they learned at their Camp Kieve training with the rest of the group! 

 A couple of the activities revolved around the game "rock, paper, scissors, shoot!" So we had each of the student leaders team up with two "youngers" to teach and then practice the game until everyone felt comfortable.

They figured it out pretty fast! Must be because they had such great teachers!

Once the kids got the basics  student leaders taught the group the game "posse," which is essentially a non-stop marathon of rock, paper, scissors where every time a player loses to another person they are "out" of the game, but becomes apart of that person's posse. The posse then follows that individual around cheering them on and they play other individuals! If you keep winning the rock, paper, scissors game you keep building your posse. If you loose the game you and whatever posse you have acquired then joins the other player's posse! Get it? Good.

Really it just ends up being a game of laughing, cheering, squealing, and fun! The game continues until there are only two people with GIANT posses left to play one another in final round! Of course Mr. H was one of the final contenders! I think he LOVED having a posse he could call his own.

And wouldn't you have guessed it, Mr. H won! He then collected the entire TLC as his posse! Way to go Mr. H. Too bad you don't have that big of a posse in your everyday life!

The student leaders then taught the group another game! This one was called "Egg-olution!" The great thing about this game was that it also revolved around the idea of rock, paper, scissors.

In this game every time you won a round of rock, paper, scissors you moved up in the egg-olution scale and became and new "level" of player! Everyone started as an egg and then moved to a chicken, then to a dinosaur, up to a swamp donkey, then to a super-human, next to the ever-amazing Chuck Norris, and finally you reached the level of enlightenment and prosperity... of course you are the Dali Lama!

The catch was you could only play a round of rock, paper, scissors with another person who was at the same egg-olution level as yourself. So you heard everyone running around saying "I'M AN EGG!" or clucking like a chicken, or pretending to fly like a super human! It was awesome.

Holy moses, this Monhegan seventh grader reached enlightenment quickly! He is the uttermost zen-like Dali Lama I have ever seen!

If you won a round of rock, paper, scissors you went up a level of egg-olution but if you lost a round you moved down! The object of the game is to win as many rounds as you can as the holy Dali Lama!

I, myself, never made it past being a chicken. 

Finally we ended our student leader activity session with a super fun and entertaining game called "Captain Carl!" Many of the older TLCers learned this game at the Middle School Retreat last year and it is always a blast!

The game is much like "Simon Says" but instead "Captain Carl" is in charge! He yells out different commands and then you have to find a certain number of people to complete your command or else you are out of the game!  Above the kids are acting out the command, "Look Out!" 

And here they are acting out "Crow's Nest!"

Captain Carl says "Galley!" 

Everyone saluting Captain Carl!

And now they are "Walking the Plank!"

And more plank walking!

Fewer and fewer kids left... who will win Captain Carl!?

I am not sure who ended up winning (probably Mr. H)! But it was a grand time no matter what!!

After our morning games it was time to head across the island to the ball field... we obviously needed to play a game on our way there! This is called "FLASH!" 

When you yell "flash flood!" everyone has 10 seconds to get their feet off the ground to prepare for the "flash flood!"

Then when you yell "Flash Photo!" the kids have ten seconds to get together to have their photo taken! This is obviously my favorite part of the game because I LOVE taking photos!

Another awesome FLASH PHOTO!

Flash Congo Line! Which means they have 10 seconds to create the longest congo-line possible!

Another FLASH FLOOD! Good thing there are a lot of trees around!

While the kids were off playing capture the flag at the ball field, the teachers were catching up on some zzzzs! We were exhausted!

After capture the flag there was a little time left to play at the ball field playground! Millie was starting to feel sad that she was going to have to say goodbye to all her friends!

 Everyone loves playground time!

And the boys especially loved the "merry-go-round!" They pretty much made themselves sick on it!

And then the rain came... everyone duck for cover!

The rain was good timing since it was time for our amazing IIE event to come to an end!

Everyone lugged their bags, tents, and gear onto the ferry and we said our final goodbyes to the Cliff Island gang! What amazing hosts they were. They have raised the IIE bar for sure!

So long, farewell Cliff Island! Thanks for the best IIE EVER!!!

The nice thing is that the rest of the schools had an entire ferry ride together before we had to say goodbye! 

A lot can happen in an hour long ferry ride! Like make-overs for this seveth grade boy! Now that is some TLC trust! Cracks me up every time!

Millie give her first Inter-Island Event FOUR PAWS UP! She was so tired that she was falling asleep will sitting up in the middle of all the kids.

There is no doubt about it, it was an Inter-Island Event for the books!

Inter-Island Event on Cliff Island - Day 2

September 2012

I woke up on day two of IIE and took my dog on a gorgeous morning walk around the island. We we made it to the town hall to get some early morning coffee and this is what we found...

All the kids were out in the pajamas playing group games the student leaders initiated! I guess they did not want to waste a single second sleeping-in when they could be playing and laughing together!

We finally got the kids to stop playing long enough to get dressed and have breakfast. Then it was time for some more activities led by the Ashley Bryan School.

Once we were all awake and active (which really the kids had been since about 6:30am!) it was time for everyone to head off to their fun workshops they had signed up for!

Many of the younger TLCers signed up to play some more parachute games. Here the kindergartners from Cliff and Matinicus walk hand and hand to their workshop! Adorable.

Monhegan's first grader taking a turn as the "Cat" in a fun round of "Cats and Mice!"

Nap time in between games!

This Cliff kindergartner said that he was dreaming of cookies! 

Another workshop that was happening was called "Ga-Ga Ball" lead by Mr. H at the basketball court! It was a fast pace game for the olders! I am not sure who was having more fun, the kids or Mr. H!

Inside of the school house their was a bandana decorating workshop happening!

Lots of creative designs!

We have some truly amazing artists within our TLC.

Awesome design for an AWESOME IIE!

Creative designers of all ages!

After our first round of workshops we met back at the Community Hall for a snack break. I love these faces so much!

]Me and a bunch of cuties! Um, excuse me!? Am I getting bunny ears right now!

Some more of the hungry kiddos!

Our fabulous "behind the scenes" crew of chaperones who were putting out snacks and making lunches! What a collaborative event this really was. 

A view of our tent city at the cove!

After snack time it was time for more workshops! Mr. H had another physical workshop playing a fun soccer game!

Most of these kids never have enough students at their school at a give time to play games like soccer, so IIE is the perfect place for such activities!

This eighth grader from Cliff and this first grader from Frenchboro were buddies during the game... sharing a secret handshake and everything!

More action shots!

Then there was this awesome sandcastle building workshop! Cliff Island has the perfect beach for sandcastle making!

Pretty fun creations!

Looks like they are having a pretty good time, huh!?

This little one had me take about a dozen pictures of her gorgeous castle/village!

It was such a beautiful, warm day, even the water felt nice!

 Look at all those silly sandcastle makers!

Sandy feet make for a happy kid!

Everyone on Cliff were so wonderful and welcoming to our TLC group. Many of them offered teachers and students rides to and from their workshops which made getting around much easier, especially those with shorter legs!

And even those with long legs didn't mind the rides!

Four of our beautiful TLC teachers wearing their fabulous TLC t-shirts!

After a delicious bag-lunch and a special presentation about our TLC student council the kids got some free time to play on the Cliff Island School's FANTASTIC playground!

The slide was a big hit.

Love these series of shots.

Ut oh! Pile up!

Go! Go! Go!

They just keep coming!

And another. They are just having too much fun!

And last but not least!

Our annual IIE group shot! Everyone say "TLC!"

Is it just me or do we have the best looking group of teachers and students you have ever seen!?

After some major play time the kids had an EXTRA special activity planned!

They got a special workshop with Ted Scheu That Poetry Guy! If you have never heard of him, you have GOT to check him out! He is wonderful and he led our group in a fabulous poetry workshop! He read some of his hilarious poems and inspired the kids to write some poetry of their own!

The kids were excited to get a chance to write their own poems!

Well maybe not EVERYONE was that excited at first! But they rallied!

Now that is excitement!

After some writing time, Ted gave the kids the opportunity to share their poems aloud!

What a handsome little poet!

The kids LOVED Ted and the way he taught poetry! Thanks Ted for being apart of our event! What a treat!

It was almost time for dinner but the kids figured they could fit in just a little more play time of course!

Millie always had a new friend to bring her to the next activity! 

And she always got LOTS of snuggles from all her TLC pals! What a lucky dog.

Dog pile!

Dinner time! YES! The kids ate fast because they knew that after dinner it was time for the annual IIE talent show! SO.MUCH.FUN!

The first act of the talent show with the Ashley Bryan School! They always put on a great performance!

A little Cliff kiddo giving a pre-show before Cliff's show-stopping performance!

The Cliff Island Players in their funny skit called "The Doctor."

And is that Jay-Z?! Oh no, that is just our own TLC rapping legend... Cliff Island's free-stylin' kindergartner.

This third grader from the Ashley Bryan School showed off some awesome magic tricks!

The "fishing line" skit!

And the "Water Pump" skit!

The Frenchboro presented an AWESOME movie for their contribution to the talent show! I think it won some major awards at the Sun Dance Film Festival!

Super sweet musical duet!

And always some collaborative hula-hooping talent!

And introducing your TLC teachers in their rendition of "Is it Time Yet!?" I am pretty sure you can see them on Broadway in the coming weeks! What talent!

The king of hula-hooping himself!

Frenchboro's super sweet kindergartner being the "sun!"

And Matinicus's kindergartner singing "Number Two!" 

Cup stacking talent!

We even had our own IIE Talent Show judges! They had some pretty awesome awards to hand out... but first one final performance...

The kids were trying to peak at what the finale performance could possibly be!

Just an embarrassing skit involving Mr. H and I. 

It is amazing what we will do for the love of the TLC!

At the end of the night everyone received awards! Including the hula-hooping king!

Happy talent show contestants!

Look at those exhausted faces. What a jam-packed day we had. Time to head for the tents and rest up for our final day together. See you at day three!