Rascal Leprechauns, World Down Syndrome Day, and Game Night Fun!

On Monday morning, the Whales came into the classroom and noticed that the Leprechaun never visited. They thought that he was being tricky by not coming. Sure enough after outside time, we walked into the classroom and what a mess those rascal Leprechauns left for us! Agh! There were tiny footprints on the tables, chairs knocked over, writing caddies tipped over, green toilets, gold glitter all over! The Whales were happily surprised to see that the Leprechauns did leave them a little golden chocolate treat! The Whales worked together to put our classroom back together. During lunch, we talked about the changes we could make to our traps that would’ve helped us catch a Leprechaun. Oh well! Maybe next time!

Throughout the week, the Whales have been learning about Change-makers. This week the Whales learned about Kate Sessions. Kate moved to San Diego in 1884 to be a teacher. Her passion was to study trees. She noticed that San Diego was a desert that was bare and had no greenery. People told her it was impossible to grow trees in that area. Kate reached out to people in different states to find out what trees grow the best in warm and dry areas. She brought people together to help her plant tree seeds and she created Balboa Park. She became known as the “Mother of Balboa”. The Whales also learned about Winona LaDuke. Winona grew up in Oregon, and eventually moved to live with her Dad in Minnesota. While in Minnesota, she learned how to speak her native language of Ojibwe, and she learned from her father how to farm rice. She became very passionate about protecting water, and she advocates that water is sacred and we must do what we can to protect it. The Whales took an Earth Steward and Water Pledge. After repeating the pledge, they signed it. We promised as a class that we would be Stewards of the Earth and we would do what we can to protect our sacred Earth.

On Thursday, the Whales celebrated World Down syndrome Day by wearing bright mix-matched socks. We had conversations about what Down syndrome is. We read a book and learned that many people are born with 46 chromosomes. A person with Down syndrome is born with 47 chromosomes. We talked about how amazing it is that everyone is different and those differences is what makes us all unique.

Card and Dice Game Night was a huge success! We are so thankful to have a community that can get together, play and laugh together. It was so heart warming to see all of the smiles on everyone’s faces and to see Whales so excited about popcorn. It’s the simple things! Thank you everyone for making game night such a blast!