This was a strange, short week for the Sea Lions! We had an unexpected snow day on Monday and then had Ms. Tami as a substitute while Ms. Susan was out on Friday. However, we made the most of our time together and did some fantastic learning this week.
The Sea Lions started a new unit of study focused on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (aka the Corps of Discovery). We discussed how the perspectives of the U.S. explorers would differ from the perspectives of the Indigenous Peoples they encountered, or from the perspectives of Sacagawea or York who went on the expedition. We talked about the importance of looking at all the different accounts and perspectives to get a more complete picture of history. Then we learned a little about the Louisiana Purchase, why President Jefferson wanted to send the Corps of Discovery on an expedition across the American continent, and what their goals were. We measured the size of the keelboat that the Corps of Discovery started their journey in and drew it out on the sidewalk to visualize how much space they had available to carry around 40 people and enough supplies for an estimated 2-year journey. The Sea Lions made their own lists of the necessary supplies we thought they might have taken on the expedition, and then compared our lists to the actual list of supplies. We were surprised by some of the gifts that the Corps of Discovery packed to offer to Native American tribes they would encounter. The Sea Lions were also interested in a device they took called a chronometer which was more expensive than all their other mathematical instruments combined.
We began a new unit on Opinion/Persuasive Writing and learned a useful structure for how to write short opinion essays using OREOs as our guide (Opinion, Reasons, Examples, Opinion restated). We have each selected our opinion topic and started planning out the reasons and examples to support our view. In math, we began our study of decimal numbers by exploring how money and prices use decimals. We worked with partners and practiced our mathematical reasoning skills to determine which store was offering a better price for bulk products (4 for $5.00 or 10 for $13.00). Students drew pictures and diagrams, used base 10 blocks, and/or used fake money to help visualize the prices and prove which store had the best deal. We also learned about tenths as a new place value and realized how decimals relate to fractions (0.1 is the same as ⅒). Some Sea Lions finished their book club novel this week and got to fill out a rating sheet to share how much they liked the book. We also enjoyed a trip to the library with the Otters class. Ms. Ren joined us a few times this week and taught the class some really fun acting and improvisation games. The Sea Lions have enjoyed playing these games as movement breaks in class, and have been sharing them with the Otters during outside choice time too. Their favorite one seems to be “Slideshow.”
