Whale Photography, Leaf and Seed Exploration, and Tree Folk Art

The Whales continue to grow as a community. The love, happiness, and learning is shining in our classroom. This week the Whales continued with their unit of study on trees. They focused on leafs, seeds, and an exploration on tree bark. We went on a field study and played tree bingo. The Whales identified leaves, seeds, and different types of trees on our beautiful campus. They were shining with pride when they could name the trees they were seeing, and the types of seeds they were finding. We had a conversation during our field study on why there were not a lot of seeds to find on the ground. We made a scientific prediction that it could be the animals taking the seeds to get ready for the winter. Although there were not a lot of seeds on the ground the Whales were able to find some Maple seeds (helicopter seeds), Oak seeds (acorns), and Chestnut seeds. On our field study, we also took a trip to the large Sequoia tree on campus. The Whales made observations that the bark on the Sequoia was thinner, and softer than the bark of some of the other trees we see. We are going to explore this more in the following week.

This week we started our Whale Photographer of the week. Each week a different student will have the opportunity to take photos for our classroom blog. The students will learn camera functions (on/off, snapping photo, viewing photos taken, video recording, and more). They will also learn how to hold a camera, and stillness to take a clear photo. You can see some of our first Whale Photographer photos in this weeks blog. It is so fun to see this students perspective during classroom choice, outdoor learning, creative expression, and wiggle time. A new Whale will take our blog photos this next week.

The Whales began their tree folk art. They added small details to their folk trees, and had to think about sizes of their different trees. We talked about the shape of their folk trees, and the resemblance to Conifer trees. These trees start thin on top and get wider at the bottom (looking like a triangle). Their folk tree art, is creative, colorful and so fun! They will be finishing their tree art this coming week and will be up to view soon! This group of Whales supports each other during every part of our day. They are constantly giving each other compliments and filling their friends buckets.