Week 15 - Art Creations, Gift-Making, and Pajama Day
/The past week was full of excitement and joy in the Sea Lions classroom! It was such a privilege for me to experience that fun with the students. We worked together to brainstorm lists of positive words and character traits that we see in each other. Then I created word clouds out of the lists and designed them as special gifts for each Sea Lion. The students have one word cloud to take home and keep, as well as another copy that will hang in our classroom.
The Sea Lions created special presents to give to family members, wrote cards to go with the gifts, and took time wrapping them up. We also made some gifts for our local animal wildlife to enjoy. We spread peanut butter on pine cones, coated them with birdseed, and hung them outside in our Cedar classroom. The students were excited to check their birdseed feeders the next day, and we were surprised to see that several of them had already been carried away by the animals, leaving nothing but crumbs behind.
We finished our Oregon geography unit by designing artwork to show the “Colors of Oregon.” Each student chose colors that match with the landscape and vegetation that is found in the geographic region they previously researched. Our first art attempt was to use tissue paper and water to make the colors stain onto the paper, but it didn’t go as planned because there was very little color bleeding. The Sea Lions were good sports about the failed art, and they were happy to re-make their “Colors of Oregon” art using watercolor paints instead. The finished collage of colors is beautiful!
The Sea Lions baked cranberry orange scones to give to the other ELC classes as part of our Bread Celebration. We were excited to attend a play called “The Gingerbread Cowboy” put on by the Whales class. We also took a trip to visit the library and stock up on new books to enjoy over winter break.
Friday was our “Read In Day” which was full of fun and memory-making times. Students wore pajamas to school, built cozy blanket and pillow forts, read books, played games, and spent time together. For our Bread Celebration, we got to share our scones with the rest of the ELC and we enjoyed eating gingerbread, cornbread, and pumpkin muffins made by the other classes.
I hope you all have a restful and happy winter break!
