Week 9 - A New Month and a New Unit

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We finished up October with so many festivities that heading into the new month of November felt like a fresh reset. Our Sea Lions class started the week off with the highlight of receiving our completed tie dye creations. They all turned out so beautiful and unique! Everyone was excited to wear their tie dyed item right away.

We wrote reflections about our favorite memories from the Fall Festival, and then added these pages to our Memory Books along with some fun photos from the day. The Sea Lions continued making progress on their written fiction stories, and two students published books and shared their finished stories with the class. We also spent time writing thank-you notes to helpful adults around the ELC and writing welcome back messages for Mr. Hayes.


We finished our chapter book read-aloud of Bunnicula and switched to our next novel: Poppy and Rye (the Sea Lions enjoyed me reading Poppy so much that they wanted to continue with the next book in the series).

For our math lessons, we practiced finding multiples of numbers, and learned about finding the common multiples of two numbers. This is laying the foundation for the future work we’ll be doing with adding and subtracting fractions. Along with the workbook lessons, we also spent time playing games that allowed us to practice the basic multiplication facts. The Sea Lions did a pre-assessment worksheet of multiplication problems (with factors from 0 to 10), and then re-did the same worksheet as a post-assessment after practicing. I was so impressed with how much progress and improvement these students made! Every Sea Lion improved by increasing their score, by completing a greater number of problems, or by being able to remember the multiplication facts with quicker automaticity.

We are adding book clubs to our Treasured Reading time, which will give the students opportunities to think more deeply about what they are reading and to discuss books with each other. The Sea Lions reviewed several options of novels and voted on which ones they are interested in. For this first book club round, we will all be reading and discussing the same novel: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. For future book club rounds, we will break into smaller groups to read other novels.

The Sea Lions have also begun taking trips to the public library. We joined the Otters class and had our first library visit on Friday. The students were so excited to browse the hundreds of book options and check out books based on their own interests. We’ll continue taking these short field trips every other week.

November also marked the start of a brand new unit of study. The Sea Lions will be studying Oregon biomes and learning about the different plants, animals, and climates found in each geographic region of our state. We began by using Google Earth to explore Oregon’s physical features. We located many of the main mountain ranges, rivers, and lakes in our state, and each student shared the physical features they found with the rest of the class so we could fill in our paper maps.

The Sea Lions continue to enjoy finger-knitting and measuring the long chains they create. They like to use it as a quiet, calming activity during read-alouds or when they finish learning activities early. The weather has been getting colder and it is often rainy, however the Sea Lions still like to play outside with the Otters during our free choice times. There have been dodgeball matches, imaginative play as fantasy characters, chess games, searching for bugs, and building forts.

Week 8 - Tie Dyeing and the Fall Festival

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This last week has been busy and full of fun! Below is a brief recap, along with lots of photos.

In Writer’s Workshop, the Sea Lions are working on using their writing to really “show” the scenes in their stories, rather than just summarizing the events. We reflected on some learning goals that each student wants to work towards, and we had mini “Student Conferences” with Ms. Susan to discuss how school is going and how we would like to improve. We started a new chapter in our math lessons which will be focused on multiples and factors, so we’ve been brushing up on knowing our basic multiplication facts. We finished our chapter book read-aloud of Poppy, and the Sea Lions are anxious for us to continue reading the next book in the series. We are enjoying Bunnicula as our current read-aloud, just in time for the spooky Halloween season.

We explored a new art medium this week: oil pastels. We created Jack-o-Lantern art pieces based on some guided questions, colored them in and decorated with oil pastels, and then painted the background with watercolors. The Sea Lions loved exploring how the oil pastels repel the watercolor paint, and they had fun using the white oil pastels to create hidden messages in their artwork.

The Sea Lions were invited to attend a play performed by the Whales class, and we were thrilled to get to watch it in a real auditorium on campus. The Sea Lions were so impressed by how well the Whales students did performing their parts and creating the scenery for their play. Now we are looking for ideas of stories we could use to create a play in our own class.

We loved getting a chance to tie dye again! Each Sea Lion student chose their own unique design, folded their clothing item, and added the rubber bands (with only a little teacher help). It was fun to see how each student approached the dyeing process differently. Some had a specific plan in mind for the colors, while others just added whatever color felt right in the moment. Some carefully applied small amounts of dye slowly, and others were excited to squirt and quickly add lots of dye. The Sea Lions cannot wait to see how their tie dyed items turn out.

We ended the week with our Fall Festival, which was loved by everyone! There were lots of different activities available throughout the day, and one of the most special parts for our Sea Lions was getting to combine with the Otters to enjoy it all together. Our day included:

  • Admiring each others costumes and taking class photos

  • Painting pumpkins to take home

  • A yummy snack of popcorn and apple cider

  • Reading Halloween books or doing Halloween word searches/word building sheets

  • Baking pumpkin muffins

  • A lunch picnic and playing outside

  • A hand painting station hosted by Maple (instead of face painting)

  • A slime making station

  • Drawing with guided Halloween art videos

  • Building with engineering materials in the Otters’ classroom

The Fall Festival was so much fun that we’re already making plans and adjustments to continue the tradition next year!

Week 7 - Lantern Walk

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We spent the days leading up to the Lantern Walk with lots of singing and creating! We continued practicing the songs for the Lantern Walk, and the students enjoyed singing them each time we walked to and from our outside Cedar Classroom. We used tissue paper to decorate the outside of our glass lanterns, and the Sea Lions had fun turning off all the lights to see how they would look in the dark. We learned how to do finger-knitting to make the handles for our lanterns, and we measured how long our knitted chains were before tying them off. Many of the Sea Lions have continued to enjoy finger-knitting as a calming activity each day.

The Sea Lions have been working hard to learn cursive. We spent several days reviewing and practicing with all the letters we’ve learned so far. One fun activity was using Scrabble tiles to spell words out of the cursive letters we know and then writing those word lists in cursive. During Writer’s Workshop, we continued developing the characters for our next stories and we planned out the events of our stories on a plot line. These planning activities really helped the Sea Lions feel prepared with solid ideas once they started writing their stories.

We finished the week with our beautiful Lantern Walk experience. Despite the rain, it was such a nice way to gather as a community and sing songs together with the rest of the ELC students.

Week 6 - Celebrating Fall and Math Lesson Adjustments

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We started the week by finishing our 3D sea lion creations built out of remida and natural materials. We enjoyed admiring each other’s creations and comparing which materials each person used. Here are the finished products.

For Writer’s Workshop this week, we began having mini lessons to guide us through the process of writing fiction stories. The Sea Lions practiced brainstorming ideas for stories based around small moments/observations in their own lives, or based on stories or characters they wished existed. Then they chose a story idea to work on and we spent time imagining what sort of traits and features their main character would have.

We have been learning the songs that the whole ELC will be singing for the Lantern Walk next week. The Sea Lions have been practicing lots and have memorized a few of the songs completely already. They are all fantastic singers!

We also took a nature walk around campus to observe the signs of Fall. We looked at the leaves of different trees to see how they are changing, and noticed that some trees have only partially changed colors. We found lots of acorns and enjoyed breaking them open to see what the insides look like. We also found an interesting nut or seed that is housed inside the spiky green pods that fall from some of the trees.

Ms. Susan rearranged the daily schedule so that we can do our math lessons in the morning time when our brains are more alert. We are also trying a new structure of small math groups who alternate each day between stations: playing math review games or working with the teacher on the new lesson. The Sea Lions are still getting used to this new routine, but so far they seem to be enjoying the extra time for games. Ms. Susan likes the extra practice students get by playing the review games and the more focused, specialized support she can provide to the smaller groups.

The Sea Lions and Otters have been having lots of fun building, creating, and playing together during outside choice time. Some of them built an obstacle course with the stumps and wood planks, and they found some slug eggs underneath a log. Others built a fort around the big boulders using the tarp and bamboo poles. Many students have been playing rounds of chess, and some are creating dance/gymnastics routines together. At the end of the week, many of the students began playing “Capture the Flag” together, which led to lots of opportunities for problem solving, communication, and whole body movement.

Week 5 - More Learning About Sea Lions

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Last week was extra busy, but we still wanted to share some of the fun activities.

We continued working on writing and illustrations for our collaborative book about sea lions.

We learned about how special sea lion whiskers are and how they help sea lions track food in the water. Then we created models of sea lion whiskers using a variety of materials and tested them in a tub of water. We wanted to see how the “whiskers” would sense movement in the water currents, and determine which materials seemed to be the closest models for actual whiskers.

The Sea Lions enjoyed eating and playing outside with the Otters.

We went on a walk to collect natural materials and combined those with some remida materials in the classroom. Then we used those items to create 3D art of sea lions and their habitats.

At the end of the week, we finished our class book, which is titled All About Sea Lions! The Sea Lions enjoyed reading it out loud for Ms. Ren and teaching her what we learned about these animals.

Here are some photos from other parts of our time together too.