QotD:Seth

Well, Seth is a seriously hilarious new addition to Frenchboro School. Every day is a new opportunity for quotable quotes. This morning was no exception.

Me: What's your favorite part of Thanksgiving Seth?

"Chicken skin."

This answer, I did not expect.

"Chicken skin?"

"Yeah, chicken skin. I love it."

India 101

Hopped off the ferry, walked into the school and threw myself into the next step in our Art in World Cultures unit. India. It just so happens that I spent a month in India. And I have some stuff...okay a lot of stuff, from the country. Here are the kids dressed up in saris and dhotis. Notice the bindis on their foreheads. So funny. I showed them all the money/pictures/statues and we talked about the Hindu religion, food, clothing, etc. Then we talked about henna designs and practiced some traditional motifs on paper to gear up for our art project next week.

STORMS Program

I went off island on Tuesday to go to the STORMS training held at the weather station in Gray.
Here's John Cannon. He's our marine forecaster and our trainer for the workshop.
There is so much technology at the weather station, it's mind boggling.
Doppler radar station!
We even got to see a weather balloon go up and track it's data on the computers.
It didn't look that big in the building did it? He'd only need a few more of those to lift off.
There it is flying high.
Then we got special training on the instruments we'll be using to record data. We're going to be taking daily recordings of precipitation to add to the CoCoRAHS website.
And this I thought was so cool...the old school recording system for weather data. It's 1907, Portland. We perused this VERY carefully.

Thanks to the Island Institute for setting all this up and we look forward to working with all the islands to get some official weather data to share!

YAY! YAY! YAY!

Our tile project is officially complete! Each tile, carefully handcrafted and glazed by students. Found drift wood used as the frame. Appreciate it, people! Many thanks to Jessica for all of her hard work. Seriously, she took these home with her TO VIRGINIA to fire them. And thanks to Charlie for ripping the boards. Especially thanks to all the kids for their hard work and perseverance! The project spanned many months and hopefully will grace the walls for many years to come. I cannot even tell you what these particular mounds of clay have been through...Jessica would kill me. Now excuse me as I clean grout from my husband's ears.

Warlpiri Paintings

In art class, we're working on cultures and how they express themselves. We do a little background, talk about the techniques and then we try it ourselves. Studying the Aborigines of Australia is a personal favorite of mine. They traditionally used their paintings to tell stories and map out sacred rituals. We looked at cave paintings and current models to get some ideas. Though traditionally the Aborigines used bark for their painting, we had to settle for paper. And there was no grinding of ocher for paints. Darn. Frenchboro is low on ferric oxide. The kids were instructed to have a story of some kind to go along with what they were painting...and to use traditional shapes and ideas of the native people. Hunting, water holes, animal tracks, etc. Who knows what Cadin had in mind here.
Jayde and Seth, working on their depictions of snakes and eggs.
Cody's really looked like the real thing! He's going on walkabout next week.
Dylan really focused on the song line of his piece, with many details about a hunting trip.
Teressa was all about camp and what happens at camp. I thought that whatever happens at camp, stays at camp! I don't see the 'outhouse' icon.

Running the Robot

The kids in 4th-8th grade are all on the Lego Robotics team. They meet every day after school (except for Wednesdays) to work on the the robot tasks as well as their project. This year the theme is Body Forward. The table is set up to simulate different parts of the body and to 'fix' what has gone wrong with the robot. For instance, there is a broken bone, which the robot has to mend by pushing the break together and fitting a blue cast over the top of the break. The kids do all their own programming and it's very time-consuming for them as it takes a lot of trial and error. As a Mainer, I'd say it's wicked hard.
The kids in K-3 are gearing up to be part of the team. They came down for a demonstration last week. What's not to love about Legos and robots??

Cross Country Race #2: Islesford

We had the privilege of a second cross country meet this year, in Islesford. Kim and Charlie took us over after lunch and we were on the starting line by 1:00. Here is the K-4 group, on their marks!
Most of the parents joined us for the trip to watch their kids compete. It's always so wonderful to see such parent support, and a great chance for little siblings to tag along.
Here's Cadin finishing first! We were so proud. And there are our girls finishing right behind him! Great job, kids!
I'm not sure who was the worse off: Seth or Mikey, but here they are finishing strong at the line. Yay, Seth! All the hard work payed off.
Here's Cody finishing first for the 5-8th grade. What an exciting race!
You know, it's not every school that has a K-8 cross country team. And not to mention that 11 out of 12 of our students competed this year. Kudos to all the kids, and to the awesome Frenchboro cheering section! Great season everyone.
Homeward bound on the ferry. I didn't take a picture of Saylor asleep on her mom's shoulder! These guys were ready for another one. And I'll spare you the conversation they were having. Hmmm....let me see...six boys. Must've been about poop.

Halloween 2010

So, here's what greeted me on Thursday morning. Ninja and Cheetah.
Then the whole crew dressed up after lunch to get ready for our Halloween party. Love it!
We made paper mache monsters which we let sit overnight to partially dry before painting them during our party.



Then it was time to eat some yummy treats! A great kickoff to the Halloween weekend.