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!!!