Week 14 - Student Presentations on Oregon Geographic Regions
/Our days have been busy in our Sea Lions classroom! The focus of last week was creating slideshow presentations with the information each student learned about the geographic region of Oregon they researched. We learned how to search for photos on the internet, save copies of photos on the iPad, and then insert them into the slides. Students also learned how to edit the format, colors, and fonts in their slides. Those who finished their presentations early spent time doing touch-up painting on our topographic map. The Sea Lions are all so proud of their work on the map and on their presentations! They spent lots of time and focused energy on these projects, and they enjoyed showing each other what they learned. On Thursday, each student had a chance to present their slideshow to the class and to our guest visitors (Ms. Ren and Mr. Mark). We practiced being respectful audience members, and took turns asking and answering questions.
We continued working on fiction stories during Writer’s Workshop. One student finished their story (a spin-off version of a Mo Willems “Pigeon” book), and another student is almost finished with writing theirs as well. We finished our chapter book read-aloud of Poppy and Rye, but decided we’ll wait until after winter break before starting a new novel. We also spent the week reading and discussing a book about poverty, homelessness, refugees, and human rights. We tied it into the work we’ve been doing to collect food donations for our community as well as the art squares we designed with ideas of what the world needs. The Sea Lions continued reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and held a strong discussion in their book club.
In our math lessons, the Sea Lions continued practicing 4-digit multiplication and we learned some new games to help us practice those multiplication skills. We also started exploring multiplication of a number with a multiple of 10 (ex. 348 x 40), exploring how multiplying by 10 means moving everything up to a higher place value / adding a zero to the end. Ms. Susan also has been taking time to practice the basic multiplication facts one-on-one with each student.
Favorite parts of the day for the Sea Lions are usually outside choice time and project exploration time. They enjoy being with their Otter friends and having time to explore and learn with the games, building materials, or art supplies they like best. We still like to be outside when we can, but we have also found ways to have lots of fun indoors when the weather is too rainy or cold.
Week 13 - Painting the Oregon Map and Tree Climbing
/The Sea Lions worked hard to paint their entire Oregon topographic map this week. They worked in small groups and took turns to ensure everyone had a chance to contribute to the painting process. They planned out which colors to use to make it look realistic and match the actual landscape and elevations of different areas of the state. They also practiced mixing paint colors to create different hues.
We also continued researching the different geographic regions of Oregon that each student was assigned. While some students painted on the topographic map, other students began creating slide presentations about their geographic region. The Sea Lions have enjoyed learning how to use different computer and iPad programs as they work on these presentations (including PowerPoint and Keynote). Once our slide presentations are finished, we will each take a turn sharing the information we learned with the rest of the class.
The cedar tree in our outdoor classroom has grown large and strong enough to allow for climbing in it! The Sea Lions were so excited to get permission and start climbing the tree at the end of the week. Mr. Mark joined us outside to teach a little about this particular species of tree and to discuss the importance of treating it with respect as another living entity. He went over the expectations and safety rules and then demonstrated how to climb it. Students have been good about taking turns and have really been enjoying themselves. They love grabbing the cloth tied to the top to show that they climbed the whole way up the tree!
Our math lessons have been focused on multiplication strategies. We practiced using mental math to multiply large numbers by breaking them into simpler parts. We also practiced using the standard algorithm to multiply up to 4-digit numbers by a single-digit number. The Sea Lions are getting better at remembering the basic multiplication facts, but could still use some additional practice each day to allow for quicker, immediate recall.
The Sea Lions are about half-way through reading our book club novel. We continue to hold book club discussions each week, and the students are becoming more confident at running these discussions independently (with only minimal teacher guidance).
Our week had quite a few irregular events: a fire drill, visits with students from the university’s Speech/Language program, a substitute teacher while Ms. Susan was out sick, visits with students from the university’s Occupational Therapy program, and a library field trip. The Sea Lions continue to show that they can be flexible and understanding as we navigate changes in our daily routines.
Weeks 11 and 12 - Oregon Topographic Map
/The main focus of our past two weeks together has been on building our topographic map of Oregon. Students worked together as a team each day to create a map out of salt dough. They covered the entire outline of Oregon, then added thicker layers to match the areas with higher elevations in our state. Next, they worked on adding all the different mountain ranges that we had previously explored using Google Earth. Finally, the students marked the paths of a few main rivers and lakes. Now we will wait for the dough to completely dry and then it will be ready for the students to paint. The Sea Lions have been taking a lot of ownership, pride, and excitement in their map building project. It has been an opportunity for them to practice reading and understanding maps, but also to work on their cooperation and communication skills. They worked through any disagreements, took turns on different parts of the project, and delegated responsibilities to make sure everyone had something to do.
We started researching information about the various geographic regions in Oregon. Each student read from printouts and web pages about their assigned region, and then took notes about the climate and physical features of that region. We’ll be sharing what we learned with the rest of the class so that we can all combine our new knowledge together.
Many of the Sea Lions finished their fiction stories and they got to share these with their classmates. We use this as an opportunity to celebrate their hard work, to practice being polite audience members, and to practice giving compliments as well as constructive feedback to each other. During Thanksgiving week, we spent our Writer’s Workshop time reviewing the conventions for greeting and closing letters, and then we wrote special thank you cards to give to some of the people in our lives that we are grateful for (including parents, other relatives, past teachers, and friends).
For math time, we’ve been working on learning about prime and composite numbers as well as finding the greatest common factor of two numbers. We also had a visit from Ms. Ren, who led the students in investigating an interesting math phenomenon of two-digit numbers (see the problem on page 32 of this link).
We’ve continued reading chapters in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and we held our first few book club group discussions. The students each took on a particular role for the book club (such as directing the discussion, summarizing the chapter, defining tricky vocabulary words, etc) and they all fulfilled their responsibilities well. We’ll be rotating roles so that they get a chance to try the different jobs. The Sea Lions enjoy pushing the tables together to hold the discussion in a cozy group setting.
The Sea Lions took another trip to the library and they were excited to check out new books to enjoy. We also continue to love joining the Otters for our afternoon Project Exploration time, where the students have been engineering structures with the Rigamajig, making and experimenting with slime, working on art projects, exploring a new engineering/programming tool called Turing Tumble, and more. Outside Choice time has included art auctions, dodgeball games (the latest challenge has been the Sea Lions class against the Otters!), and lots of imaginative play.
Week 10 - Start of our 3-D Oregon Map
/This week was very short for some of our Sea Lions, but we made the most of our time together. It has been fun to see what sort of activities students choose to work on during their free time: several students started writing messages with morse code or their own made-up codes; another student is creating a big class poster with signatures and photos of our classmates; one student likes to practice making their own Google Slides with morning check-in questions (similar to what Ms. Susan uses to start our class each day); and others enjoy drawing fun pictures to add to our classroom bulletin board. I wish I could snap more photos of these creative Sea Lions using their imaginations!
Our math lessons have shifted to a focus on finding factors of numbers. To go with that, we spent a little time reviewing how to do long division, but Ms. Susan is seeing that we could use some additional practice to become more familiar with the basic division facts.
The Sea Lions began reading our group novel for our book club this week. So far, the students have been very committed to completing the assigned chapter readings (even finishing at home if they run out of time during class). We noticed that this book has quite a few unfamiliar vocabulary words, so we also spent time looking up definitions for some of them in the dictionary. The class will have our first book club discussion next week, where we’ll get to ask questions about what we read and share our thoughts and opinions with each other. The plan is for these discussions to become more and more student-led as the Sea Lions get familiar with the process.
We’ve been continuing to work on our Writer’s Workshop stories each day. Several Sea Lions have their books almost ready to be published, and they’ve been working on editing the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in their writing.
For our Oregon unit of study, we decided to construct a giant 3-D map showing the physical features of Oregon that we’ve been exploring. We will be using salt dough to create the shape of Oregon on our map, and then building up and sculpting all the different mountain ranges, rivers, and lakes. We needed a way to draw the outline of Oregon on our cardboard base, so the Sea Lions did lots of brainstorming and problem-solving to find a solution. We ended up projecting a picture of Oregon from Ms. Susan’s laptop onto the whiteboard, and then having some students hold the cardboard box in place while another student traced the outline. The Sea Lions also engineered a stand using a table and some chairs to help support the heavy box. The whole process took lots of teamwork, problem-solving, and patience!
Since half of the Sea Lions class was out on Friday, we decided to wait for next week before we start adding the salt dough to our map. Instead, we got to measure ingredients and mix up a batch of salt dough. We also learned about topographic maps and elevation. We noticed that even though the southeastern region of Oregon is made up of flat basins and is like a desert, it is still a much higher elevation than the Coast Range mountains in the west.
The Sea Lions have been invited to join the Otters class each afternoon during Project Exploration time. The students love this opportunity to explore different materials in the other classroom as well as to interact with more friends. So far this has been going well for both classes, and we’re hoping to make this our regular routine.
