Sea Lion's Stellar First Week Together!
/Our first eight days together and already the Sea Lions have become a tight community of learners and friends. We started our time together by exploring the Limbic System, delving into parts of the brain that help us concentrate, regulate our emotions, hold memories and learn. We had a special visit from ELC parent and Pacific professor Ms. Liesel who talked to us about neuroscience and the anatomy of our brain. The Sea Lions were fascinated by the human and animal brains she brought for us to examine. As the week progressed, we participated in skits and activities that further deepened our understanding of the role of the Amygdala, Prefrontal Cortex, Hippocampus, Reticular Activating System, neurons, synapses and more. We are learning how our “Pause Breath” is the magic antidote for finding calm and regulation, even in the most stressful times.
We began brainstorming and organizing our thoughts for our autobiographies and are working to understand proper sentence and paragraph structure. We are becoming Word Wizards, analyzing the rules of spelling and morphology to help us become better readers and writers.
We started exploring math in a big way, splitting into two groups, looking at the Egyptian Numerical System and multiplication arrays, practicing use of the commutative and associative properties, graphing and more. We made a pact to work together to grow a math community that listens, respects one another’s differences, is patient and kind, and celebrates the wonder of math.
Along with all of this, we found time to complete some collage art on our new writing and reading notebooks, create some pretty amazing rainbow-symmetry-name-art and begin work on a ceramics project. Wow!
Of course, twice a day we’re lucky enough to explore the Cedar Classroom, and play rousing games of Monkey In The Middle out in the quad on Pacific’s beautiful Campus.
We are so excited for what this year will bring, and we’re thrilled to be going on this new adventure together!
