Dear Spruce families,

Wow, we can’t believe it is already June! This year has really flown by. Thank you to everyone for sitting down with us at the spring Parent-Teacher conferences. We truly love each and every child in our class and it was so lovely to talk more about them with you! Thank you for sharing them with us.

The end of May brings us to the close of our whale unit. The children really enjoyed learning about baleen with a demonstration involving water, a comb, and some dried rosemary (to simulate krill). We also stretched out a 98-foot long piece of yarn across the field to show how big a blue whale actually is! We listened to recordings of humpback whale songs and learned about how they use a “bubble netting” technique to catch their prey. We learned that there are also toothed whales, and spent a few days studying our Southern Resident orcas (even though they’re technically dolphins!). We learned about the different parts of an orca, read “Whales Passing” by Eve Bunting, and listened to a recording of some orca clicks and whistles, too.

It has been so fun to share our whale research with the children and wrap up our year as a classroom community. What a fun year! We hope all of you can join us for the end-of-year school picnic on Friday, June 6th at 6:00, and we hope you have a great summer!

Warmly,
Lydia and Cydnie