Morning Meeting Captains

Click and Clack are Morning Meeting Captains for the first week of school. There are a lot duties associated with this: put up the flag, get the rain gauge and enter the data into CoCoRaHs, print up the NOAA marine forecast for Frenchboro, pick a joke, figure out what yoga moves to do, and then get ready for school like everyone else.
Here they are picking a joke from our new silly joke book.
Then it was time for the Morning Show. Here's Johnny reading off the data from the weather station, then the NOAA forecast, and finally Seth told the joke of the day. They went to the front of the classroom after that to lead Morning Meeting: Pledge, Schedule, News, Weather...
...and Wednesday is seated yoga, so there they are up front leading the group in the spinal twist. Thank goodness they didn't start off with the camel pose.

School starts tomorrow! You ready, kids?

Field Day Recap

Last day of school is always a lot of fun because we have Field Day.
I told them I wanted to take some photos, so I asked them to walk together. They were beyond silly, as usual.
It was all about the rabbit ears.
Little did they know that it was a setup...Jessica and Joey were waiting with lots of water balloons. The kids took off like rockets as the balloons pelted all around. Great way to start the Field Day antics.
On to the stiff competition: eraser races.
It was a very serious event.
Who needs the three legged race? This one is equally as hard and...not as dangerous.
Well, I take that back.
Cody was breaking out the yoga moves.
Does it count when you drag your brother across the line?
I didn't know Joey took ballet?
No eggs. That's okay since the balls were a lot less messy.
The whole "choking up on the spoon" was highly popular and effective.






Cody was hamming it up with the heart shaped glasses. This will come back to haunt him now that he's in high school. He. He. He.
We have trouble walking without blindfolds. So you can imagine how this went.

Trap races. For some reason we got the two heaviest traps in all of Frenchboro.
Usually it's a relay with two kids. No way was that happening. Thank goodness for Mikey and Jessica. As it was, we lost Seth in the process...he ended up chasing after the group yelling at them to wait for him. Hilarious.

Yes, yes, the spectators were a rowdy bunch.
Then, our all-time favorite came. The balloon toss.
There were some radical throws going on...and some radical soakers.




I love action shots.
Nice punt, Bradley!


"Hey. Ms. Finn's taking our photo."
"I know."
"Don't look over there."
"I'm not."



There's a new sheriff in town. He goes by Tyler. Kindergarten, here we come!

Vanderbilt Visit

As a final event for our Island Readers & Writers work with Vanderbilt University, we were lucky enough to have two prominent scientists, a husband and wife couple, Julie and Billy Hudson, come for a visit and present on their work with the university medical center. Billy is doing cutting edge Diabetes research and is beginning to work with strange creatures called water bears. They are microscopic organisms that are nearly indestructible and they will hopefully help him with his work with the effects of Diabetes on the kidneys. We might be partnering up to help him by growing water bears in petri dishes for his lab next year. Amazing stuff.
July and Billy awarded the kids certificates for their participation in the IRW/Vanderbilt lessons.

Thanks to Billy and Julie for coming all the way out to our little island. Tune in for more updates about water bears!

After Party

After the Fun Fair, we have developed this tradition of a balloon popping contest. It's a reward after the massive clean up that the kids do (never once complaining!) following each Fun Fair. We save all the balloons to the side and then the popping commences, with lots of hilarity, of course.
Sometimes there are some misses, or belly flops, but always lots of cheering and...photographers?
Peter from the Island Institute was visiting our island fellow and getting some pics of her at work. Since she's done work with the kids at the school, they came down to see if they could get some shots of her with the kids. Well. This is what was happening. So, yes, true to Jessica fashion, she joined the kids in the balloon popping contest. I guarantee no other island fellow will have pictures of themselves sitting on balloons.
As Bradley came in he clapped his hands in glee saying, "This is my favorite part of the Fun Fair!" Definitely a tradition to continue.