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Isle La Motte Elementary: An Update

November, 2010

Our theme this year is, "It's Easy Being Green -- See it, Live it. Love it, Own it." From this, we developed the concept of our island being like a pond and each member of our school community being a lily pad. With this concept, we are pursuing our place in the community, the larger community, and the world. Students are exploring the geographical and social structure of their community, comparing and contrasting their community to another Vermont community, as well as to the Asian country of Bhutan.The symbiotic relationship between a school and the local community and the greater links between the local community, the larger community and the world; are at the root of the educational initiatives at Isle La Motte Elementary.

Our key projects are:

• Integrating the Learning Network of Vermont and technology to develop a relationship with a group of freshman at Champlain Union High School and their teacher, who will be in Bhutan from December until June. With this project, both schools are incorporating the Shelburne Farms Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Kids Guide to “Study Neighborhood and Place.” Each ILM student is paired with two CVU students. The students will meet through our web cam and the LNV system. Each student has created digital photo stories of their “special place” and will share these through technology. ILM students will then travel to CVU to share information about their communities and create gallery journals that will be shipped to Bhutan and dispersed by Katherine Riley a social studies teacher at CVU. In addition the students from both schools will remain in contact throughout the school year. In the spring the CVU students will be camping in Isle La Motte and helping the ILM community to build a bread oven!
• Quebec Bread Oven: The students and parents of ILM were inspired last year when they learned about bread ovens at other VRP schools. The community and the school are working together with VRP to create a business plan and build the bread oven in the spring. The students and community are working together on several levels from planning the structure, planning gardens to supply products for the oven, recipe creations, and entrepreneurial ideas.
• Who’s Who in Isle La Motte: This is a guide of who lives on our island, what they do, where they are from, and ultimately how can they support the community through their knowledge and skills. Our island is small, but there are a lot of people who have not had the opportunity to be involved in the school or the larger community. This project aims to have the students meet and interview most of the community members and to build relationships that will create partnerships.

All of our projects, although separate, are thoroughly integrated each other, the curriculum, and after-school program. They are tied together through our theme of being green. The students are creating their own understanding and meaning for our theme throughout the school year as it relates to all aspects of the life. Teachers and staff spend countless hours meeting and planning beyond the school day. Each one is dedicated to having each child discover their gifts and talents, and develop assets that will support them as the learn and grow on and off the island.