Hibernation Site Engineering and Cozy Hibernation Party,

At Friday Summit today, the Whales listened to the Sea Lions sing a beautiful song about Change-makers. The Whales talked about spreading kindness and being leaders to our younger ELC friends. Friday Summit felt like such a great reminder of all the amazing work that every single classroom here at the ELC is doing. The Whales love coming together and celebrating with the entire school.

This week the Whales were hard at work engineering hibernation sites for their pacific northwest hibernating animals. The Oregon Black Bear group worked on painting a Den. The Little Brown Bat group worked on painting a cave and making many Brown Bats to hang inside. The Northwest Painted Turtles started making their Carapaces (top shell) and Plastrons (bottom shell). The Common Garter Snakes started to create Garter Snakes for their hibernaculum. Take a look at the photos below to see them working on their hibernation sites.

This week in literacy the Whales worked on the /h/ and /r/ sound. We practiced spelling and reading words with those sounds in them. We have also started reading words that have consonant blends such as skip, mist, and sink. We learned a few new heart words this week. We learned be, he, and me. During our reading group time, the Whales read a book called “The Animals are Sleeping”. They loved seeing their hibernating animals in a story. Read this fun story at home with your Whales! During literacy, we have been talking to the Whales about using the tools they have in their tool box when they are writing and reading. Instead of taking guesses, they can use the sounds they know to blend letter sounds and read words. They can use their bed hands to help them determine if they are reading a b or a d. They have so many tools and so much knowledge that we continue to encourage the Whales to not take random guesses. When working with your Whale on their homework tell them to use their prefrontal cortex and the tools in their tool boxes. Encourage them to not just guess but to do the tricky hard work. The Whales have talked a lot this week about stretching our prefrontal cortexes.

During numeracy, the Whales are working on recognizing teen numbers and understanding the place value associated with them. We talked about how many of the teen numbers give us a clue as to what number comes after the one. For instance, in the number nineteen, we can hear nine. That gives us the clue that nineteen is a 1 and a 9. We know that their is 1 ten stick and 9 little ones in 19. Have your Whales practice writing their teen numbers at home. Give them a teen number and ask them to figure out how to write it making sure the one comes first. Then ask them how many ten sticks and little ones are in that number.

On Friday, the Whales had a surprise Cozy Hibernation party. We enjoyed hot cocoa, and some popcorn to celebrate all of their hard work. They have really become experts at hibernating animals. They expressed during the celebration that they are excited to be teachers for the preschoolers next week and some expressed that they are feeling “nervited”. Nervous and excited. As a class we looked at our scientific illustrations and the Whales said they worked so hard on their illustrations. They talked to each other about how their animals look similar but everyone’s have differences. They loved seeing their hard work on the wall. Next time you are in the Whales classroom, please check out their hibernating animal artwork. It is truly astounding. You can also look below for a picture of their amazing artwork.

Research Papers, Scientific Illustrations, and Library Trips

The Whales have been putting their scientist hats on during their hibernation study. They have worked as groups to read non-fiction research about their hibernating animals. They have talked about the main facts and they each were in charge of writing two facts for their research papers. They also created illustrations that went along with their facts to help them remember their facts. They have been teaching each other about their animals. It has been so fun to see them sharing their knowledge with one another. They have talked about the similarities of their animals and differences. We have noticed that many animals slow their breathing down for hibernation and their heart beats slow as well. However, some animals go into true hibernation like Northwest Painted Turtles, while, other animals like the Oregon Black Bear go into Torpor.

Each Whale has spent time this week working on a scientific illustration of their hibernating animals. We talked about noticing small details when illustrating like a scientist. Their illustrations are to help others see what their animals look like in real life. They are now working on adding color to their illustrations using different art mediums. The Whales are practicing using an artist hand which is soft and helps us stay in the lines of our illustrations. The Whales are feeling extremely proud of their illustrations and have been talking about the hard work they have to put into their illustrations. They can’t wait for them to be finished and hung up!

On Friday, the Whales took their first trip to the Forest Grove library. We had a community discussion about library etiquette. The Whales did a great job being respectful of other community members in the library. They made sure to put the books they weren’t going to take and put them back where they belong. We talked about the importance of a library and the jobs of librarians. Each Whale got to pick out a book to add to our classroom library. We will hold on to these books for 2 weeks and then we will go back to the library and return them. We will be taking library trips every other Friday. The Whales are so excited to return to the library soon!

Animals in Winter

The Whales are back in action after a restful Winter Break. In a community discussion, on Tuesday, the Whales were eager to share about the memories they made during break. Some Whales traveled to see family, some went to the Mt. and played in the snow, while others stayed cozy and warm at home. It was so fun to see their smiles as they talked about their adventures.

On Tuesday, we started a new unit of study on Animals in Winter. First up, is hibernation! The Whales selected a Pacific Northwest animal to research over the next couple of weeks. They will be writing a research paper, doing a scientific illustration, engineering their animals hibernation site, and presenting to classrooms and families on their animals. This week we began reading about our animals and writing our research papers. We will continue to work on their papers next week as well. The Whales are proving to be amazing scientists. They are asking great questions and are deeply focused on their animals.

As we get closer to the 100th day of school, the Whales continue to practice counting to 100 by 1’s and groups of 10’s. This week we did a counting by 10 counting circle. We continue to talk about place value. While doing calendar, we identify how many ten sticks and little ones make up our day number. Thursday we had the 76th day of school. The Whales identified that we have 7 ten sticks and 6 little ones. We counted by tens and added on our little ones. During classroom choice, the Whales have been playing Bear Den Math. They start with ten bears. One person closes their eyes, while the other Whale hides some of the bears in the den. The person opens their eyes and has to figure out how many bears went in the den. They then have to write that number sentence on their worksheet. At the beginning of the week, the Whales thought it was a bit tricky. By Thursday, they were pros at figuring out how many bears were in the den!

In literacy, the Whales have been practicing their vowels! The Whales are learning the short and long vowel sounds. We have unlocked 5 vowel sounds in our vowel valley. The Whales are so proud of themselves! We have also been practicing reading and writing words with an -s ending. Sometimes these words can be tricky but the Whales have been doing a fabulous job listening for all the letter sounds in these words. Our heart word list continues to grow! This week we added the word “see”.

What a fun Friday the Whales had! We had a math morning playing Uno, checkers, math number coloring, addition yahtzee, and shut the box with Ms. Brooke! At Friday Summit, Landon shared with the school that the Whales are studying animals that hibernate in the Winter. It was so fun to hear what all of the classrooms are up to! During our outside time, we had an extra surprise! The Sea Lions (3rd/4th graders), set up an obstacle course for the Whales! The Whales had such a good time letting out energy doing different outside activities. When the Whales came in we talked about our thoughts about their outside time. So many Whales said “I made a new friend!”. They absolutely loved getting to know the 3rd and 4th graders.

The Tea Party in the Woods Continued

Here are some additional photos of the Whales during their dress rehearsal and performances in December!

The Tea Party in the Woods

Happy Friday everyone! The Whales did an outstanding job in their performance of The Tea Party in the Woods. Please check out the recorded video that Mr. Mark took. Ms. Aimee and Ms. Abby are just so proud of the Whales for their hard work on their lines, backdrops, and props. We hope this video adds some more joy into each of your winter breaks!

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Authors Celebration and Winter Read - In

The Whales have been a busy bunch the last two weeks. The excitement continues to grow as we get closer to our play performances and winter break. This week the Whales had some visitors amongst our classroom. After reading a book called, “The Tomten”, the Whales had their very own Tomtens visit the classroom. On their first visit, they left a riddle for each of the Whales and left behind some of their beard fluff! The Whales created a list of questions and thoughts they had for the Tomtens. For those of you who don’t know, Tomtens are a Swedish folklore tale. They are said to be a gnome/elf like person that lives on farms and works to help animals in the winter. They are shy and can be mischievous. The next time they visited us they gifted the Whales homemade wool felted acorn necklaces. The Whales were so excited and took a picture holding up their necklaces. This last time they visited they answered our wonderings that we had listed in our classroom! WOW! Check out their answers hanging in the Whales classroom. The Whales have yet to actually see the Tomtens and it remains a mystery as to where exactly our Tomtens live.

We are only 4 days to the performance of our Winter Play. The Whales have been working so extremely hard on their backdrop designs and props. They worked with teachers to figure out what each part of our set should look like based on the illustrations in the book. They painted the backdrops and had to work together as a team to complete the job. The backdrops are looking amazing and the Whales are feeling so proud of their hard work. The Whales are feeling confident with their lines and are using their strong voices to make sure an audience can hear them. Look forward to receiving your ticket for the play this week!

Thank you all for coming to the Whales Authors Celebration and Winter Read-In. What a night of laughter, joy, pride, and love. The Whales out did themselves during their performance of Peace like a River. It is such a magical feeling to see the Whales create bonds with their classmates and memories that they will remember always. Thank you to all of the Whale families who support the Whales classroom and students every day. They are such kind, hard-working, and loving human beings. On Friday, the Whales each spoke of their favorite part of the celebration. Some favorites of the evening included; “drinking hot cocoa and eating popcorn”, “reading my stories”, “spending time with my family”, “coming to school at night”, and “wearing pajamas to school”. Thank you everyone for making it a special and magical night for the Whales!!

Busy Writers, Musicians, and Mathematicians

The Whales having been getting so excited to prepare for their Whale Winter play. They decided to do the play on the book The Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi. The Whales picked their parts and they are all very excited to practice their lines. Each of them got a script and their homework is the practice they lines over the weekend. So far the Whales have practiced a few times in class saying their lines. We have been talking about how to perform in front of an audience and what it will look like backstage when you are not performing. Next week the Whales will start working on creating their costumes and making the back drops for their play. They are so excited to perform for the ELC and for their families.

This week we had our last music session with Ms. McKenzie until the Spring. The Whales so enjoyed their time with Ms. McKenzie. On Wednesday, they were telling Ms. McKenzie their favorite parts of music. Many Whales like singing Firefly Firefly, others liked singing about different holidays. They worked so hard the last 8 weeks and they were so proud to perform for families at pick-up.

The Whales have been practicing addition and will soon be working on subtraction. This week, we played rainbow to 10 addition BINGO. We would give them an addition problem and they would have to solve it to figure out what number they can cross off. Many Whales were being so kind and helping friends around them if they asked for help. The Whales are huge supporters of one another and teachers throughout our day. We also practiced counting by tens and adding little ones. We have been doing this during our classroom choice activity of speedy bugs love to race to 50, as well as during calendar time. Can you believe we have had 60 days of school! WOW! The Whales counted, and figured out that we have 40 more school days until the 100th day of school.

Writers workshop has been very busy! The Whales are working incredibly hard getting their stories published. The Whales are writing their own sentences now! It is so exciting to hear them sounding out their words and creating fun and magical stories. The Whales are so excited to share their stories with their families during our Authors Celebration/Winter Read-In. The Whales are spelling phonetically in their stories. They are listening to the sounds they hear to help them decipher how to spell their words. This week we learned a new rule. When we hear the /k/ sound at the end of the word it is most often spelled with a CK. For example; duck, luck, pack, snack, chick, etc. We are seeing progress and growth every day in their writing!

This group of Whales are creative, loving, inquisitive, and hard-working. They are stretching them selfs and not giving up when things get hard. Walking into the Whales classroom, you can feel a community that learns together, plays together, and works together. What amazing students, human-beings, and friends they are.

Stone Soup Feast!

The Whales had a very exciting week leading up to Stone Soup Day. The Whales have been having a fantastic week in their reading group. They have gotten new books, practiced choral reading, and have been working on independent reading. They have new books in their book bags and they are doing an AMAZING job sounding out words and rereading when they got stuck on words. During classroom choice, the Whales have been practicing making sentences and reading their sentences to a teacher. We have been checking to make sure our sentences make sense and that we are reading it how the punctuation tells us to read the sentence.

The Whales have been really enjoying their music sessions with Ms. McKenzie. They are learning words like forte, piano, and legato. They are learning the beginning of reading music notes. This week in music, the Whales drew on a banner the things that they are grateful for in their life. Check out their banner art hanging above their cubbies.

Bring what you’ve got, throw it in the pot, we’re making stone soup!!! The Whales worked as a community to chop all of the veggies that went into our stone soup, as well as fruit and cheese! It was a tough job but they got it done! Ms. Shelby added our ingredients into the big pot. While the soup cooked, the Whales gathered into a gratitude circle. We went around the circle and each shared some things that we are grateful for. Many Whales shared they are grateful for their family, pets, and school. Later in the day we got together with all of the other classrooms to hear Mr. Mark read Stone Soup. After listening to Stone Soup, we walked to the atelier and ate with all of our ELC friends. The whole school smelled amazing and the Whales all took an adventure bite of the soup. A huge shoutout to our parent volunteers, Ms. Ren, and our head chef Ms. Shelby. Stone Soup would not happen without them! Ask your Whale what their favorite part of stone soup was!

Leaves are Falling!

The leaves are falling and the chilly weather is upon us! BRRR!

This week in the Whales classroom we asked the question; Why do leaves change color, and why do they fall off their tree? The Whales learned that leaves have chlorophyll in them which is the green pigment that absorbs light into food for trees. When it starts getting colder outside and with less sunny days trees don’t need to make as much chlorophyll because there is not as much sunlight to turn into food. With the leaves having less chlorophyll, the other color pigments start to show in leaves; turning the leaves orange, red, and yellow. Because the leaves aren’t doing much during the winter, the trees drop their leaves. If the deciduous trees kept their leaves it would be risky in the winter. If it snowed it could get too heavy for the branches to hold and they could snap. Once the first frost happens, trees can no longer lose their leaves. Go on a tree walk with your Whale and notice the trees that are being brave by keeping their leaves on still. Notice the trees that are cautious by dropping all their leaves. The Whales collected different types of deciduous leaves around our school campus. They collected Chestnut, Ginko, Maple, and Oak leaves. We put them into big bins and carried them back to our classroom. The following day we got into groups and sorted the leaves based on different attributes. One group sorted by size, another by color, and the last group sorted by leaf type. They then had to work together to count the leaves in each group. To do this, the Whales found it easier and quicker to put the leaves in groups of ten and then count by tens to find the total number. When all of the groups finished, we traveled around the classroom, where each group presented their findings. They all worked so hard and did not give up!

The Whales are READERS! We started reading groups this week. There are 4 different reading groups. The Piggies, Knuffle Bunnies, Pigeons, and the Elephants. Each day of the week the Whales will meet in their group and will do a different reading center. Once a week their group will meet with Ms. Abby to have group reading time, where they will read a new book together, work on targeted reading skills, and will get new books for their book bag. If they are not with Ms. Abby they are completing a reading activity, and then reading from their book bags. This week the Whales were so excited to find out what group they are in. They all had smiles on their faces and I heard students saying, “I love books!”. This is a classroom where we value books and we are so excited to see the growth the Whales will have this year in reading!!!

On Friday, We had a lovely math morning with some new but familiar math games. The choices were checkers, shut the box, Uno, Connect 4, and less or more addition war. These are all great games to build problem solving, manipulation with numbers, counting, recognizing numbers, positive sportsmanship, and MUCH MUCH MORE! This weekend spend some time playing a card or dice board game with your Whale!

We continue to see this group of Whales be positive cheerleaders to each other. On days where we have published books, we read the newly published books at the end of our day. All of the Whales give a Whale round-of-applause. And so many Whales will turn to that friend and say “you did such a great job!”. What a bright light these students are. Their happiness, pride, and kindness fill our classroom each day.

Trees and Leaves

The Whales have had a great start to their tree and leaf unit. The weather has been perfect for putting our scientist hats on and checking out the trees on our beautiful school campus. On Tuesday the Whales answered the question “do trees get thinner?” We learned that every year a tree will grow a new ring which makes their trunk thicker. We practiced counting rings on wood cookies to determine how old they are. The oldest one we had was 17 years old! We also learned that scientists can look at the rings of these wood cookies and can determine the environment that that tree had in each year. They can see whether it was a healthy growing environment or if is was really cold and dry that year. After looking at wood cookies in the classroom we took a tree walk around campus to look at the trees standing tall and strong. We know just by looking at a tree we can’t determine exactly how old a tree is, but we can look at the trunk and see how thick it is. We compared the wood cookies from class to the trees outside. We determined that many of the trees on campus are older than the wood cookies we have in our classroom. We also talked about the two different groups of trees; deciduous and conifer. Deciduous trees have leaves that fall once a year and conifer trees have needles that stay on their trees. Ask your Whale what some of the other differences are between deciduous and conifer trees are. Take a tree walk in your neighborhood and have your Whale think about if they are seeing a deciduous or conifer. We got to end our exploration by collecting leaves and throwing them up. Look below for some fun photos of the Whales throwing their leaves.

This week we had Felicity the Penmanship Fairy visit. We didn’t see her but she dropped off a basket full of gifts and a card for our Whales. Each of the Whales got a Felicity Penmanship book, along with colorful pencils, and smiley erasers. Felicity also gave the Whales magic writing dust that helps them write their letters. The Whales have been doing a FANTASTIC job focusing on their penmanship and taking their time becoming amazing writers. We are so proud of them!

In numeracy this week the Whales have been playing Speedy Bugs Love to Race to 30. They have been working on counting little ones and turning them into great big ten sticks. They have been adding on and counting by tens! What an amazing thing to see these Whales grow their mathematician brains! In Literacy, the Whales have been practicing reading and writing sentences and using a finger space in between each word. Next week we will be starting reading groups. The Whales will be getting reading bags with books that will change weekly. The Whales are readers!

A Halloween to Remember

Hello All!

The Whales had a fabulous week full of spooky activities, and Halloween fun! This week in the Whales classroom the Whales worked on a new art project. We read the book, “Monsters Love School”, and started to create our own funky, and silly monsters. We used oil pastels as well as water color to make our monsters POP! The Whales were so creative and every monster has its own fabulous features! The Whales will be wrapping up their Monster Art next week and they will be hanging in the cubby area. Be on the lookout for some silly monsters!

During Writers Workshop, the Whales have been having one-on-one conferences with Ms. Abby to talk about their current story that they are working on. In our conferences we are talking to Ms. Abby about the beginning, middle, and end to our story. The Whales are creating some amazing endings that are making the reader want to read more! The Whales are also working on stretching out their words. We are moving from just beginning letter sounds, to spelling whole CVC words! It is incredible to see the Whales brains continue to stretch and grow!

In Numeracy, this week the Whales are continuing to work on addition. They played a spooky game of Spider Web Roll. In this game the Whales play against a friend. Each have their own spider web. They take turns rolling a die and putting that many flies on their web. They also are writing a number sentence to show what they rolled and put on their spider web. After they have rolled twice and put their flies on their web, they add all of their flies together. The friend who has more flies all together wins the game. At home ask your Whale some simple addition problems (5+2, 7+3, 4+1).

On Halloween, the Whales had a great artistic morning of creating masks, making spooky ghost cards, story telling with witches and pumpkins, and magical painting. The Whales had a fun time showing each other their costumes. During our day, we did a choral reading of the story “Five Little Pumpkins”. The Whales did a great job using their linger finger and pointing out heart words that we have learned. Ask your Whale to read you their book at home this weekend! At the end of the day, the Whales were so EXCITED to walk in the annual ELC Costume Parade. They looked great as they waved to people who were watching the Parade. The Whales are now ready to have a restful weekend after a busy week!

Celebration of Community

What a fantastic Celebration of Community! There was laughter, smiles, and love filling each space of the Whales classroom. The Whales worked extremely hard on Thursday cutting 50 apples to make enough apple sauce for our classroom community! They felt proud to show you their hard work, and everything they have been learning thus far in Kindergarten. The Whales teachers want to give our Whale families a giant thank you for supporting the Whales in their learning, and leaning in to their studies! They are all doing such an amazing job because they have loving and supportive family and friends that show excitement in what they are doing at school and the learning that they are achieving everyday!

Take a look below at our preparation for Celebration of Community and some amazing photos of the event itself. A huge shoutout to Mark Bailey for capturing so many special memories in the making!

Music with Ms. Mckenzie, and Apple Tasting! YUM!

What a musical crew the Whales are! Last week the Whales started music with Ms. Mckenzie! We will be doing music with Ms. Mckenzie every Wednesday. The Whales each have their own musical folder, with musical terms, and all of the songs the will be learning this fall. The Whales so far have learned about Forte (which means loud in music language), and Piano (with means quiet in music language), and crescendo (starting quiet and growing to loud). The Whales have also started the beginnings of learning how to read music. This is such a special opportunity for our Whale classroom. If you would like to access the different songs that the Whales will be learning this fall click here. We so far have been learning; Hey Everybody, El Chocolate, Hasta Luego Winnegago, and Firefly Firefly. The Whales have so been enjoying their first couple of music sessions!

This week the Whales had an apple tasting. We put on our scientist caps and used our 5 senses while making noticings about the different apples we tasted. The Whales were mindful through this process. They shared their thoughts to the group. We all took adventure bites of each apple. We tried Honey Crisp, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Cosmic Crisp. At the end we each voted on which apple was our favorite. The Whales were asked to vote with their heart and not with their friend. We talked about how it is totally okay to have a different favorite then your friends. We graphed our votes on a bar graph and talked about which apple was the most popular in the Whales classroom (had the most votes), and which apple was the least popular (had the least amount of votes). The Whales noticed that their were votes for each apple, but the Honey Crisp was the most popular because it had the most votes, and we could see that because that bar was the tallest.

The Whales started their art study on Henri Matisse. Matisse was a still life artist that used shapes, color, and shadow in his art. The Whales will be working on creating their own Matisse apple art by using shadowing to make apples look like they are right in front of you! They are so excited to begin this project!

These Whales are so excited about learning and being in a community together. We are constantly hearing them supporting one another, and being each others cheer leaders. They are kind, hard working, and so full of joy. They are becoming scientists, artists, authors, mathematicians, readers, and so much MORE!

Investigating Apples, Hukilau (Hu-ki-lau), and Becoming Readers!

This week the Whales dived deep into their study on apples. We looked at how apples grow. We talked about the female parts of an apple blossom and the male parts. We also looked at how apple blossom flowers become fertilized. The easiest way for apple blossom flowers to become fertilized is by bees. We read that for an apple flower to be fertilized it must get pollen from a different apple tree. It can’t be fertilized by the same apple tree. During the week, we did a field study on apples in the piazza with the apple trees. The Whales worked in partners to conduct their study. Each pair picked a apple, had a knife, and cutting board. Their task was to scientifically illustrate the outside of an apple. The Whales then got to cut their apple open. They scientifically drew the inside of their apples. Then they had to find all the seeds in their apple and draw their seeds. They used their eyes to make observations about what they were seeing, and they used their nose to make noticing’s about the smells of their apples.

During literacy this week, the Whales have been working on blending, segmenting, and manipulating phonemes. During UFLI, the Whales started with making the word map. The teacher then asked the Whales to change one letter to make the word tap. The Whales had to figure out what phoneme in the word map would change to make the word tap. We will continue to practice this next week. The Whales also started learning about heart words. Heart words are irregular words that don’t typically follow common spelling rules and patterns. The first heart word that the Whales have been learning is the word “the”. The Whales are practicing saying the word in a sentence and spelling the word.

In numeracy the Whales are working on counting on and counting by tens. During calendar time we count how many days of school we have had. Friday was our 23rd day of school. That is 2 ten sticks and 3 little ones. We counted by tens and then added our little ones on. We have also been working on recognizing patterns and making our own patterns. On Friday, the Whales had a chance to make bracelets with their own patterns.

In writers workshop, the Whales are working on stretching their words. They are using the tools in their writers workshop folders to spell out their illustration labels. Friends are spelling words such as sun, dog, hat, and much more! We have some amazing authors and illustrators in our classroom. They are thinking about the beginning, middle, and end of their stories. The Whales have also been helping Ms. Abby add on to her story about being at school. They told Ms. Abby that in order to get work done on her story that she couldn’t stare at the ceiling and chat with friends the whole time! Once the Whales told Ms. Abby that, she was able to get so much more work done on her story. Those Whales are great teachers!

The Whales begun studying Hula dancing this week. Ms. Janelle a student at Pacific University will be coming every Tuesday for this fall to teach the Whales a Hula routine. On Tuesday, the Whales learned what Hula dancing is and the importance of Hula dancing in the Hawaiian culture. The Whales also learned the first bit of the Hula dance. The Hula dance the Whales are learning is called, Hukilau. If you want to listen to the song that we are dancing to click the link. Hukilau song.

During Friday Summit, we got to listen to other classrooms tell us what they have been learning. We also got to share what we have been learning about in the Whales. Joella was our first Whale Class Representative and she shared with the rest of our school that we finished our Van Gogh Sunflowers. Next week a different Whale will be our representative and will share with the school some of the things we have been learning during our apple study! What an exciting addition to Friday Summit.

Salt Through The Sieve

What a fantastic 4th week of school the Whales had! We explored apples at the nature table, worked on our letter sounds, played Whale Guess Who, had our very first Mystery Reader, and much much more!

This week the Whales started their first full lesson of UFLI. UFLI is our phonics curriculum that teaches the Whales foundational reading skills. We work on phoneme blending, grapheme-phoneme correspondence, decoding, encoding, and more! This week we worked with the short vowel a sound. We practiced blending letter sounds to make a word such as cat, and map. We practiced our letter formation of both uppercase and lowercase A. The Whales did a great job taking care of their learning tools, and materials. They showed so much kindness!

At the numeracy must-do table, the Whales balanced apples (bean bags) on their heads and tested how many steps or jumps they could do without the apples falling over. Some friends got up to 22 steps with 3 apples on top of their head! WOW! The Whales had to write the numbers of how many apples they balanced, and how many steps + jumps they took. In numeracy, the Whales are also working on counting on. Starting with a big ten stick, and adding on little ones. They are doing a great job supporting each other and challenging themselves!

The Whales started their apple unit of study. They spent the week exploring and investigating apples and apple branches at the nature table. They noticed that the apples were different colors and different sizes. We learned that apple trees blossom in the spring. When the blossom starts to die, the apple starts to grow. We looked at our apples and noticed that we can still see part of the blossom at the bottom of the apples. When you’re at the store notice the apples with your Whale! See if they can find the blossom on the bottom of the apple! We also learned that apples have seed chambers located inside the apples. This holds the seeds and keeps them safe! Next week we will be opening up apples and investigating the insides!

We have started to play Whale Guess Who! Whale Guess Who is a game where the Whales listen to clues about a friend in their classroom. They have to guess who they think it might be based on the clues. The Whales really know each other because they have been able to guess it every time! After they guess who it is, we count the syllables in that friends name. We make rhymes with that name. And the Guess Who contestant has to put their name back together after being split apart!

This week the Whales learned about a saying we use in our classroom, “salt through the sieve”. Ms. Abby showed the Whales a sieve and we talked about what it is. We imaged that the Sieve is us or our brain. Ms. Abby named something that happened in her day that was good and made her happy. That was a chocolate chip and Ms. Abby added it to the sieve. The Whales noticed that the chocolate chip couldn’t fall through and we talked about how Ms. Abby wants to hold on to the sweet chocolate chips that happen in her day. Then Ms. Abby talked about something in her day that was a little salty and made Ms. Abby not very happy. That is the salt. Ms. Abby added salt to the sieve. The Whales noticed that the salt goes through the sieve and doesn’t even ruin the chocolate chips! The salt are things that Ms. Abby doesn’t want to hold on to and she just lets it go. She doesn’t let the salt ruin her day. The Whales went around the room and said something good that happened in their day and added a chocolate chip to the sieve. We talked about how holding on to the good things can help us feel happier and helps us learn more. The Whales thought that the salty things that happen to us we don’t want to hold on to because they don’t help us be happy and we can just let those things go. We can say “salt through the sieve”. When you are around your Whale and something salty happens like they spill something or their wood tower falls, we can say “salt through the sieve”. That means we can just let it go and think about the chocolate chips in our day!

The Whales had their first Mystery Reader on Friday! Ms. Courtney read “Violet the Pilot” and the Whales absolutely loved it! A huge shout out to Ms. Courtney for coming in to the Whales classroom and sharing a story with us!

Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Published Authors, and Our First Friday Summit!

This week the Whales wrapped up their study on Sunflowers. They started the week learning about Vincent Van Gogh. We learned that people in his town thought his paintings were weird and different. Many people teased Van Gogh for his art. We noticed that Van Gogh did not give up just because other people said his art wasn’t good. We learned that his paintings are very popular, are featured in museums, and cost A LOT of money. The Whales started their art by illustrating a vase that their sunflowers would sit in. To create their sunflowers the Whales used circular sponges and blended brown and black paint to make the middle of their sunflowers. To create the pedals the Whales used paint brushes and a swiping technique. They used a mix of tempera paint and water color to make different parts of their art POP! The Whales will be finishing the last touches to their Van Gogh sunflowers next week and they will be soon displayed in our classroom for everyone to see!

For numeracy, the Whales have been practicing using ten frames, and number writing. They studied the numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9! They practiced using ten frames to show their number. They used two different materials to make their number on the ten frame. This can help visualize two parts becoming one. For sign in this week, the Whales practiced their number writing. We are making sure that our numbers aren’t doing the backwards dance! Have your Whales practice their number writing at home! Here are some rhymes you can use:

-0: Around you go, around you go, that’s the way you make zero.

-1: Straight line down, and then we’re done. That the way to make the one!

-2: Round and back across the railroad track. Two! Two! Two!

-3: Around a tree, around a tree, that’s the way to make a three!

-4: Down and over and down some more, that’s the way we make a four!

-5:The bee goes down, around the hive, then dives across to make a five!

-6: Around the clock until it ticks, that’s the way to make a sox!

-7: Across the sky, then slant the line, makes a seven every time!

-8: Make an S and do not wait, go back up to make an eight!

-9:First a circle, then a line, that’s the way to make a nine!

In Writing, the Whales helped Ms. Abby add details to her illustration. We noticed that we can always add more details to our illustration even if we think we are done! It’s AMAZING! The Whales are starting to publish their first stories! When they are finished with their story and have done some editing with a teacher, they get to add a cover! They create a title, and get to decide what genre their story is. They stamp the date on their cover and put it into our Whale Author basket! The Whales are so excited to fill our basket with fun and creative stories!

On Friday, the ELC had their very first Friday Summit! Friday Summit is a new tradition that the ELC will be doing every Friday morning. During Friday Summit, the whole school meets together. We do a song, a land acknowledgement, and as we get more into the year, each class will get to share the learning that they are doing in their classrooms. We call this our Summit because we talk as a community about the “hill’s we have climbed” that week, when we share our classroom updates. Ask your Whale about their favorite part of Friday Summit!

The Whales are Scientists!

“We are filling each others buckets!” This exclamation was made so many times throughout this week by multiple Whales! After reading “How Full is your Bucket?” the Whales challenged themselves to fill peoples buckets every day. We learned that if we fill other peoples buckets, in return we will feel our bucket also fill. The Whales took action and showed support to their friends every day this week! It was so heart warming and amazing to watch!

This week the Whales became scientists. We dove deeper into our study on the human brain. We talked about being mindful and what that looks like. We learned that neuroscientists have found that being mindful helps the prefrontal cortex focus, it helps us regulate our emotions, and it even can make us feel happier. The Whales were introduced to the Peace Table. At the Peace Table Whales can communicate with their classmates and work to resolve social problems. There are resources at the Peace Table to help walk students through conflict resolution. We practiced mindful listening while we are at the Peace Table and talked about helpful actions we can take for our community after we solve a problem including writing letters to apologize, cleaning up spaces we may have made a mess of, and organize items in the classroom that got disorganized during that process. The Whales have been using the Peace Table throughout the week and have been doing a great job, talking to others about their feelings and how to solve the problem at hand. The Whales also took a deep dive into our study on sunflowers. We learned about the lifecycle of a sunflower and even acted it out, starting as a seed. We were able to investigate the sunflowers in our very on piazza! The Whales noticed so many small details and were able to illustrate like scientists. On Friday, the Whales learned about heliotropism (sunflowers following the direction of the sun). We pretended to be sunflowers during meditation, and took a breath in when the sun rose, and took a breath out when it set.

This week the Whales were artists and authors! The Whales started and finished their beginning of the year self portraits. These portraits will be displayed in front of each Whales cubby. So be on the look out! The Whales also began Writers Workshop. We learned about how stories need a beginning, middle, and end. We made a story path for the Three Little Pigs. You can check it out hanging in the classroom! It is so fun to see all of the stories that have been started in the classroom. Some Whales are writing about family trips, Holidays, school days, and so so so much more. We are so excited to continue to watch their stories grow and for them to be published authors!

On Friday, we had an engineering morning! Whales were able to freely choose from different engineering stations including; domino chain building, play-dough + wood stick structures, wooden block building, Lincoln logs, and magnatiles. There were some amazing structures! Look below for pictures of their creativity and genius engineering!

What a spectacular week!!!

The First Week of School!

What a absolutely fantastic first week of school for the Whales! On the first day of school, we read “Lenas Shoes are Nervous” by Keith Calabrese. We had a community discussion about how it is okay to feel different emotions about starting something new, like kindergarten! We made a chart to show how each friend in our classroom was feeling about the first day of school. Some of us were feeling happy, some were excited, some were nervous, and others were “ner-vited” (both nervous and excited). After looking at the chart we could see how many Whales were feeling each emotion. We applauded each other for sharing how we were feeling. We are already building such a tight-knit community filled with kindness, and love.

We started our week measuring different parts of sunflowers. To do this the Whales learned how to use a ruler to measure. We looked at the inch side of a ruler and talked about what an inch was. We used inch worm blocks to help us visualize this concept. Some friends had sunflower parts that were as long as the ruler, 12 inches! We practiced writing our numbers next to our traced sunflower parts. At the science table, the Whales used a pro-scope to look at the head of a sunflower up close. Some Whales even found bugs tucked in between the seeds. The Whales have been working hard through out the week using tweezers to pull out sunflower seeds. Next week, we will do some big counting with those seeds using ten frames to help us. At the storytelling table, the Whales made magical stories of their characters at a sunflower farm.

On Thursday the Whales started to learn all about the brain. We learned about 3 parts of the limbic system. The prefrontal cortex (wise leader), amygdala (controls feelings), and the hippocampus (memory saver). We looked at a diagram of the brain and saw where each of those parts are located. In the Whales classroom, we make decisions using our prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex helps us focus, so that our hippocampus can take new information and store it. We ask the Whales to use their prefrontal cortex and hippocampus when we are learning something new. Next week, we will learn more about how meditation and mindfulness can help grow and strengthen our brain.

The Whales have had a blast playing in the Cedar Classroom. They are practicing using the monkey bars, and climbing the big logs and rocks. Many of the Whales have been enjoying the giant sand box and using the water to make pathways in the sand. However, we can’t forget about the piazza. The Whales love playing with the giant blue blocks, and building creative structures, like castles and boats. We also noticed that the sunflowers in the Piazza are blossoming just in time for our sunflower unit. Next week, we will be scientists and investigate our own sunflowers in our very own piazza.

We wrapped up our week, with our first sharing day! Whales did such an amazing job using their strong voices to tell their classmates all about their sharing. We heard about stuffies, books, photos of fun trips, rocks, petrified wood, a slithering wooden snake, and so so much more! Sharing is such a fun time where we get to learn all about the important things in our friends lives.

We are only 3 days into the school year, and we can already tell it is going to be a spectacular year! Full of growing, lots of learning, new friendships, and so much fun!