Oceans

For the past week we have been exploring different types of whales. We read various non-fiction stories and looked at websites to gather information about whales. 

On the first day we explored what we already knew about whales. The students were split into groups and rotated to jot down what whales have, what they look like and what they are. After they presented their chart to the class. Then we read a nonfiction story to confirm the information we wrote down and to add new information. 

After reading a few non-fiction stories the students wrote down their favorite whale facts. We also discussed the difference between a fact and a opinion. 

The next day we used a venn diagram to compare different types of whales. Each group was given a whale they had to research. After we came together to discuss the similarities and differences between a humpback whale, a blue whale and an orca whale. We learned that some whales are much bigger than other whales. We used yarn to measure out how big the three whales are.

A blue whale is the biggest animal in the world! The average size of a blue whale is 31 meters. (From the student in the blue shirt all the way down to the student in pink pants.) 

A humpback whale on average is 13 meters. (From the student in the blue shirt to the student in the striped dress). 

The average length of an orca whale is 9 meters. (From the student in blue shorts to the student with a blue shirt). 

Then we watched videos of different whale movements. We learned that breaching is when whales jump out of the water and twirls around, spyhopping is when a whale pokes its head out of the water to look around, lobtailing is when whales stick their tails out and slap it on the water and logging is when a whale lies still at the surface of the water, resting, with its tail hanging down. 

The last thing we did was compare whales to fish. How are they different, how are they the same? 

We had lots of fun learning about whales...but the kids are definitely excited to learn about sharks!