ILI Students: (Jr.) 8, (Sr.) 4
ILI Staff: Alice McFarlane, Craig Kerr, and Matt White
 
Today was another beautiful day outside and all of the students wanted to head outside.  So that is what we did.  We introduced a new activity to the students “Foxfire Carrier Tag.”  This is a complicated tag activity.  It involves team strategy, deception, risk, and the ability to run quickly.  Once the students figured it out they had a great time interacting with each other and really enjoyed the activity.  After the first round of we switched to an old school yard favorite, Red Rover.  The students really enjoyed the opportunity to play an old favorite.  The students were happy to be outside, enjoying each other, and worked well as teams.
 
This group will meet again next week.

 
LUHS Students: (F) 12, (S) 7, (Jr.) 8
ILI Staff: Craig Kerr, Matt White, and Alice McFarlane
 
The students came to ILI with their normal enthusiasm.  Craig welcomed everyone and made some announcements concerning upcoming events.  ILI will be organizing a middle school dance on May 2^nd from 6-9pm.  He also let them know about next week’s ILI sessions.  Then Craig split the group and the physically active students went with Craig and the others stayed with Matt and Alice.
 
The physically active group went with Craig to the field house where they elected to play matt ball.  This has become one of their favorite activities for homeroom.  It is great to see these students really enjoying the activity.  They expend a lot of energy and enjoy it at the same time.  Many of you who work or have students know the energy that the students have at this time of year and we are trying to help channel that energy in a positive way. 
 
The group that stayed with Matt and Alice had a good conversation that enabled them to get to know each other better.  Some even took this “quiet” time to work on some of their schoolwork.  The ability to choose which activity group they would like to be in allows the students to choose based on their needs.
 
This group will meet again on April 30.

 
ILI Students: (S) 7, (Jr.) 9, (Sr.) 1
ILI Staff: Alice McFarlane, Matt White, and Craig Kerr
 
The students came in with a whole lot of energy.  Craig welcomed them and let them know that they are important.  He reminded them of the upcoming 5^th grade sessions and let them know that Matt would be around to hand out permission slips for mentoring opporunties. 
 
Craig split the group into two groups. The students who wanted to do more artistic endeavors went with Matt and Alice and Craig had the active group.  Matt and Alice had a great time with their students making wonderful craft work.  Craig did an activity called Mat Ball.  This is an activity closely related to kickball, but you can have more than one person on the base at a time and when you arrive at home you can keep going to first base.  The students really enjoy this activity.  They were all into the activity and the time flew by.  We stopped towards the end and fixed all of the mats and tarps they have in the multipurpose room.  We think physical activity is helpful for students to be able to release some emotion so that they are ready to concentrate in their classes, as well as the effect that smiling and laughing have on the chemical make up each student.
 
This group will meet again on April 16.

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ILI Students: (S) 3, (Jr.) 8 (Sr.) 7
ILI Staff:  Matt White, Alice McFarlane, and Craig Kerr
 
Today the students were shocked to see that the room was transformed.  Track has started and the maintenance staff has replaced the fun bouncy floor with green tarps.  Craig welcomed the group and let them know what the two groups would be doing.  Matt and Alice took a group of students and worked on ideas for artistic endeavors for the arts group and Craig took a group of students and they participated in a number of ILI “favorite” activities. 
 
We believe we have found a good balance of high-energy activities and thoughtful artistic expressions by having two groups during our activity period.  Matt and Alice talked with the students about projects that they would like to do during activity period.  They had great ideas and began to expand them to include projects outside of the activity period time frame. 
 
Each week the students who walk through the door for our activity period bring a different mood or feeling with them. Today’s group seemed as though they needed to smile and be refreshed.  Craig brought out some old ILI activities that these students have not participated in for a long time.  Sometimes when we are involved in activities that we have done when we were younger, they bring back an attitude of hopefulness that is a part of us when we were that age.  As the stresses of life mount it is nice to remember through physical activity the hopefulness of childhood.  The students left with a brighter attitude and a smile on their faces.
 
Next meeting April 2.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

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LUHS ILI Students: 
Freshmen: 11  Sophomores: 3  Juniors: 8  Seniors: 5
ILI Staff: Alice McFarlane, Matt White
 
   Matt called all the students into a circle and proceeded to tell them about the upcoming Service Learning Overnight opportunity. Once again this year, ILI students will be helping as volunteers at the Lakeland Loppett ski race held each year at Minocqua Winter Park ski area. Students will volunteer on the race course, serving food and water to skiers as well as at the finish line helping with timing. After the race, ILI students and staff will go to the LUHS school forest for an afternoon and evening of fun and an overnight in the winter lodge (weather permitting). On Sunday morning, students will go to The Waters for a morning of splashing fun! We usually invite high school ILI students as well as some 8th grade students that they will mentor for the weekend. Matt fielded a lot of questions.  Afterwards, Matt introduced something new that the staff would like to try out during Homeroom period:  having craft and artistic options off to the side of the main activities.  The main activities will now be new ones that we’ve never tried before.  The students will get a chance to give feedback on what concept each activity would help illustrate in an elementary school ILI session setting..  This is really a fun, inclusive way to help test stuff out and give the high school students a voice on what the grade school ILI students will experience in their upcoming sessions.
 
     The artsy group focused on ideas to work on in the future and making decorations for the ILI board in the commons.  The activity group tried a number of new mixer games involving tossing objects around a circle.  These students are fun and energetic and it is great to see them focused on positive things.  They are incredibly creative!

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

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LUHS ILI Students: 
Freshmen: 9  Sophomores: 5  Juniors: 9  Seniors: 5
ILI Staff: Alice McFarlane, Matt White, Craig Kerr
      
     After signing in, Craig called the group into a circle and had some upcoming opportunities to present to the students: Community service at a cross country ski race, after school options, some decorating for ILI, etc.   Then the freshmen and sophomores went to one set of building blocks while the Juniors and Seniors went to another.  Craig gave them the challenge to see who could build the biggest tower with what was provided.   After the time limit it turned out that the wisdom of seniority won out but it was quite close. Craig brought the group together and explained that this group has great potential for building things up or letting them stay the same. He also pointed out that there is not a distinction between upperclassmen or the younger students: they are equally powerful. 
 
    Then Craig had them gather around some giant sheets of paper with some of the questions the students wrote about two weeks ago.  Craig then asked them to brainstorm ideas to answer those questions and bring good solutions.  We were still in this process when the bell rang and it was time to go.  We plan to continue the conversation next week.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

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