Student Council Line-Up

On October 20th, 2011 the outer islands made history by electing the first inter island student council. Sadly, Monhegan couldn't join the rest of the islands because of an internet failure, but fortunately was on speaker phone to hear who was sworn in. The week before everyone who was running for a position posted a video(s), or a glogster(online poster) about what makes them suitable for the job they were running for. Voting day came around and everyone got to vote 2nd grade and up. It was a stressful race although a friendly one, no negative campaigning was necessary. Yay! The positions that were available were: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Public Relations Representer, Parent Teacher Representer. The island representers were nominated into the position.

Here is the Line up for the first Inter island student council:

President: Dalton

Vice President: Emma

Secretary: Fiona

Treasurer: Joe

PR Rep: Meg

PT Rep: Meg

Cliff Rep: Eliza

Isle Au Haut Rep: Alex and Michael

Islesford Rep: Louise

Matinicus Rep: Dylan

Monhegan Rep: Quinn

Louise's fabulous campaign!

Teacher's were interviewed for people's campaigns.

Dylan's A-mazing campaign video!

Interviews from teachers!

This was a VERY serious election! We even had a ballot collector!

Announcing the results!

Island Teacher's Conference

Last week the TLC teacher's put on their fancy inshore clothes and headed to Rockland for the Island Teacher's Conference hosted by our dear friends at the Island Institute! The TLC teachers were asked to give two presentations about the TLC work we are doing with the outer island schools!

Our first presentation was about the aligned curriculum that the teachers (along with the help from our students) have developed for our schools.

We had a great turn out! There was a lot of excitement of how the TLC could work in bigger island schools! The collaboration possibilities are endless!

At the end of our presentation we had our teacher audience write down questions they had about the TLC. Can you guess which question came from our favorite Cliff Island teacher?!?! Look closely...

Yep, you guessed it. No other question really compares with the utter importance of THIS question. At least within our TLC.

For our second presentation we went over all the different technology we use within our TLC!

The best part of the presentation was that the kids were very much involved. Dalton and Quinn helped interview many of the island kids about how they use technology in the classroom. Then Dalton pieced the interviews together into a few movie clips that we embedded into a Prezi!

See the final product for yourself..

Blogs, Glogs, and Wikis! Oh My! on Prezi

At the end of the Prezi we skyped in the Olders and Middles from Islesford for some Q & A! The presentation was just BURSTING with technology!

After TWO presentations our good lookin' group got together to do some planning and organizing. I know I may be biased I do believe we have the best group of teachers any island schools have ever seen!

I mean, how could you not LOVE these faces!?

Anywho, it was a fabulous conference with fabulous teachers. GOOOO TEACHERS!

The Barter Thing

A Barter Thing

Michael Kenneth Barter 9/27/11
A seagull landed on the bow of the boat and starred at us. My dad, my brother and I were on the boat. We looked out on the sea and saw Jonny and Grampy they were lobstering too.
In the spring we get our traps ready and in good shape. All Barters fish. It is a Barter thing. The things you need to lobster are bait, traps, a boat, gas and your hands or a pot hauler. I love to go lobstering. We fish in the summer and the fall. We use a ninety horsepower boat and we haul by hand. It’s hard work hauling traps.
Isle au Haut has 13 adult fishermen and 5 student fishermen. We fish for lobsters, crabs and fish too, like flounder. We fish around Isle au Haut, Kimball and Merchants. Sometimes the traps get rocked. Rocked means the rope is stuck around the rock or a rock is on the trap. If you run over a bouy’s line it gets in your propeller. You have to cut the line and hopefully, if you can, tie it back on to the bouy and drive off carefully. Once your done hauling you put the lobster in a crate. Take them up to Stonigton and sell them and your done for the day.

Outer Island Student Council

This is the first time in history that the islands have put together a student council. On October 6th, 2011 every island got together through video conferencing units. Mostly only older students (like me) were there and got to decide what to run for. Most of us who have been on the island our whole lives have never had the experience see or run student council. Some of us are now working on campaigns, while others are wondering who to vote for. We have worked out an electoral voting system so even the less populated islands get an equal vote. There are only a few positions you have to run which are: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and the idea of having a secret service has also been given. We will see who will race to the finish of this election later on next week! Stay tuned on facebook or keep checking the blog for more posts!

Awesome IIE

Inter Island Event is a day when all the island kids get together to play games and do workshops. Last inter island event was on Matinicus and it was awesome! Capture the flag was probably the best part. Because it is active game so you can get all your energy out. After capture the flag I went to a drumming workshop. That was really fun because I learned new things and I made up music tunes on the drum buckets.

The variety show was awesome even though I was not in it. My brother did a awesome dance which was surprising because he is usually shy when preforming. The middle school day was so fun. It was fun because we talked about the school year and what we will do. The goodbyes were not fun because I didn't want my friends to go but I see them in three weeks now!

Kinder-Communication!

In the past year, our TLC project has mainly focused on getting our older students working together using technology. It seemed logical at the time to have the older students using the technology since they are so use to it in their daily lives as is... but this year we realized that it was time to bring in the younger students into the project as well!

This little ones are pretty tech-savy! We have been using skype and the video conferencing systems to have the kindergartners take part in some virtual sharing (questions, songs, poems, and stories!) I think it is working in terms of getting them excited to work with other island kids since anytime I get my computer out my kindergartner jumps up onto the chair and asks "Who are we calling on the computer today!?"

See for yourself... they are so stinking cute!!

Inter Island Event (IIE) 2011

Once a year five islands plus a new one travel to one island to enjoy a day of field games. This year for the first time ever we all went to Matinicus. Each year a different island host the IIE.

All the islands got to Matinicus at about noonish. Monhegan and Cliff islands were the late ones to the party. We all got our tents ready and immediately circled up for announcements. Before we could go and participate in our activities we signed up for, everyone did a group activity. Apparently we were discovering different parts of the world in three groups. Really it was a three teamed game of sardines. The first team who found the hiding group would get a map and a name as a reward.

Group Sardines

After about half an hour of that we moved onto our activities. I forget what the other activities were, but I was excited for capture the flag. As middle schoolers we were big headed and decided we could do without adults. The teams were kids versus adults. Adults won once and kids won once. There were some arguments about the last game, but we all had fun either way.

We were refueled with snacks and moved to our last activity. I think the choices were drumming, castle making, and variety show prep. I was with the variety show prep because I had nothing planned. My friend and I quickly put together a dance to Dynamite by Taio Cruz. This was a fun activity because I got to find the dance in me, cheesy I know but thats what happened.

Dinner was delicious. It was a potluck, but the food was amazing. Between what the other islands brought and the people living there cooked, it was an amazing meal. Dessert was good to although I'm not sure there has ever been a dessert that wasn't appealing.

Time for the big show! The variety show was great. All the acts were fun to watch and if you were preforming it was just as fun. Almost everyone had an act. I enjoyed doing my dance with a few friends. The last act was done and we all had been given awards fitting to our performance. I wonder how that happened? Sneaky teachers.

Bed time. The older kids were supposed to do some star gazing, but I don't know what happened to that. We all got into our respectful tents and went to sleep. . . well most of us did. My friend and I stayed up a little and caught up. A lot of us hadn't seen each other since last May.

Year Book Signing!

Breakfast was nice. We hopped into our activities right away. I think there was mural painting, hiking, and kickball which turned into another series of capture the flag. We were split into more even teams this time although we had less people this time. We had a great time slipping and sliding on the wet grass. I can't remember the scores or points, but we left laughing with each other.

Snacks are a priority at IIE. We all got a snack and started hanging around Matinicus's

playground. Inter Island Year Book got handed out and we were in a frenzy to get everyones

signature. After an hour or so we had to regroup into our circle for last announcements and

goodbyes.

The Jackie Renee

Sadly everything ends. We all walked down to the dock to say goodbye. All kids 5th grade

and down got onto the Sunbeam or the Jackie Renee to go back to there respected islands.

Wait, 5th grade and under only? Yes for the second time in history we had a middle school day.

I'll let someone else write about that. . .