Guest Artisit: Susan Webster!

"Be prepared for a mixed-up day!" was the message of morning meeting.  Our usual schedule was flipped all around for our very special guest, Susan Webster!  She came to our school to teach us how to make prints using gelatin blocks.  Susan is our very first guest artist brought to us by the RLL Fund.  We had a great time making beautiful prints.

 

Monhegan Loves Ashley, and So Do We!

Ashley came to visit again this week.  This time he brought with him a collection of books donated to our school by his friend Nikki Giovanni.  We invited the rest of the TLC to join us and together we enjoyed listening to Ashley perform some of Nikki's poems.  Click here to visit Monhegan's blog and read more about the event.   

Guest Artist--Barb Fernald!

For two weeks we have been so lucky to have Barb Fernald join our art classes to help us make jewelry.  Here are her blog posts about her visit:

Visit One
Visit Two

Sure was fun!

Older MIddle Math Update

These super smarty pants continue to master new math skills! 

The older students have been working on solving problems involving linear and non-linear relationships by creating tables, graphs and equations to represent the problems. 

In the middles group, students are working on three different sets of skills.  Some students are learning about the coordinate plane and are beginning to make tables and graphs to show rate of change problems.  Some students are learning about order of operations and learning to simplify expressions using order of operations.  Still other students are learning all about polygons and angles.  Those students are learning to use protractors to measure and make angles. 

Last but not least, this group of middles is working on memorizing their multiplication facts!  They are so close.  So far they know all of the x1, x2, x3, x5, x10, and x11.  This week they began learning their x4 facts by looking at patterns on the number line, by learning a fours skip counting song, and playing a math game called Math Dash.  

Poetry Slamming with Monhegan

For the last several writing sessions with Monhegan we have been working on writing poetry.  Now that each student has a collection of original poetry, it's time to slam!  

Today we met with Monhegan and began working on how to perform our poems.  To get ideas about how to perform a piece of poetry, we watched four YouTube videos of different aged students from around the country performing their original poetry.  

Some ideas that were generated from the videos:

• Perform poetry with more than one person.
• Get into it!  Show some emotion!
•  Use your body to express the poem.
• Change the tempo of your speaking.  

The students all chose to work with partners to begin working on performing their poems.  

Here students from Monhegan and the Ashley Bryan school work on some ideas for performing one of their poems. 

Here two students from the Ashley Bryan School work on one of their poems. 

After practicing, we shared our ideas for performance. This student from Monhegan and....

this student from the Ashley Bryan School performed a poem together. 

Pretty fun stuff!

Best Week Ever.

Today was our final day of our first ever TLC Spirit Week! 

We kicked off the week with a pajama day on Monday followed by opposite/backward day on Tuesday. 

One pajama day kiddo.   

Another pajama day kiddo. 

Opposite day fashion....

Even his boots are on the wrong feet!

Even the teachers got into the spirit!

But, the best day of Spirit Week was today--TLC Colors Day!!

100% of the students and teachers at each TLC school wore their spirit colors!  After showing off our terrific outfits, we played a game of TLC jeopardy.  The final scores were close, but the Ashley Bryan School won!  We celebrated like crazy!

The final event of TLC Spirit Week was a sharing of the TLC cheers!  Each school came up with their own cheer.  Here is ours:

Have you ever been fishing with the TLC
All the little fishies swimming up and down the sea
With your hands in your pockets and your pockets in your pants
All the little fishies doin' the TLC dance!

Monhegan, Matinicus
Isle Au Haut, Cliff
Ashley Bryan School
And the TLC Rock!

With your hands in your pockets
and your pockets in your pants
All the little fishies doing the TLC dance!

The Rosamond Lane Lord Fund

We had special guests on Friday:  Sarah Corson and Ashley Bryan!  They visited the school to share about the Rosamond Lane Lord (RLL) Fund.  The fund was created by Ashley Bryan to honor Sarah Corson's mother, Rosamond Lord.  Rosamond spent her life making art.  When she died,  Ashley Bryan wanted to continue to make some of her prints available to people in the community.  Over the years he printed many copies of ten of Rosamond's prints and the money from those prints was put into a fund.  Ashley and Sarah decided that the fund would benefit the children of the Ashley Bryan School by providing funding for special arts projects.    On Friday, Ashley and Sarah came by the school to tell the children about Rosamond and the RLL Fund.

Sarah and Ashely came to the school to tell us about the RLL Fund and to show us some of the art Rosamond made throughout her life.  She made so many interesting and beautiful things!

Rosamond made art out of things that she found in nature, like these little turtles made out of beach rocks. 

She made jewelry and decorations with seeds and nuts she found.

She made block prints of different scenes of the island.

She painted metal trays and made ordinary things, like band-aid boxes, beautiful.

She also loved to knit for the people that she loved. 

When she died, Ashley wanted to continue to share her art work.  He decided to continue to make prints from 10 of her print blocks.  Here are two of the ten prints that he continued to sell to establish the RLL Fund. 

The RLL Fund purchased many picture books for the Islesford Library. 

These books were purchased because of their beautiful artwork and/or because they focus on an artist.  Hopefully our students and community members will be inspired to make art!

The RLL Fund also purchased art supplies for each student at the Ashley Bryan School! 

 In addition to the books and the great art supply gifts, the RLL Fund will also bring visiting artists to the Ashley Bryan School.  Our first guest artist will be a print block maker!