Meteorologists, and the Whales Poetry Slam

The Whales are practicing Meteorologists! This week the Whales started a new unit of study on Weather! We turned our focus towards the sun. The Whales learned that the sun plays an important part in all weather patterns (rain, snow, thunder, etc.). On Tuesday we studied how the sun heats up the earth. We learned that the sun heats up the earth (ground) and the earth heats up the air. Ask your Whale to show you the hand motions that go with “the sun heats up the earth, and the earth heats up the air”. This makes it so the air closer to the ground is usually warmer than the air way up in the sky. It takes longer for the earth to heat up the air that is higher up. We thought this was interesting since the sky looks closer to the sun. After studying how our earth gets warm, the Whales looked at what makes day and night, and the seasons that we experience on earth. For this we went outside. We took turns with Whales being the sun and the earth. If you were the sun you stood still and strong. If you were the earth you had to spin on your axis all the way around the sun. The Whales learned that this spinning rotation around the sun is what makes day and night. The tilt of our earth is what makes the different seasons. The Whales learned that it takes 365 days or 1 year to rotate all the way around the earth. The Whales tried to spin 365 times around the “sun” but they got real dizzy! We all decided that the sun is REALLY COOL!!

Throughout the week the Whales worked on finishing up their poetry. They painted their beautiful poetry book covers with tempera paint. They decided that using bright colors would be fun for a poetry book. They each painted such unique and gorgeous art to hold their treasured poetry in. We also practiced reading our poetry out loud to our classmates. The Whales did such a great job all week supporting their peers. They cheered each other on for each practice. They are true poets!

Lets talk about the Whale Poetry Slam! WOW! WOW! WOW! I am beyond amazed! If the Whales taught us anything today, it is that poems can be about anything! The Whales are all such unique individuals and it was so fun to see their personalities and creativity shine through this afternoon. Before the Poetry Slam the Whales did a quick meditation and we talked about how we were feeling about reading our poetry out loud to people. Some Whales were feeling nervited (nervous + excited), some were scared. However, they all got up in front of a large group of people and delivered with strong voices. I want to give another big round of applause for this spectacular group of students!