Animal Adventures

Grade levels

2-3

Description

Do you love animals? Come along on our Animal Adventure! We will be traveling to four different habitats: the ocean, rainforest, forest, and arctic! We will be exploring cool and unique animals that live in each habitat. Along our adventure, we will be creating amazing artwork using clay, paint and more! We will also be constructing fun science experiments, so get ready! It is not recommended to take this course a second time.

Extended Day Plan

Visit St. Wild River State Park

Instructors

Ellie McElhenny: I am thrilled to be a part of SEEK again this year! I have taught ESL in St. Paul for the past 7 years. Before teaching in St. Paul, I was teaching abroad in South Korea for three and a half years. I have taught a variety of ages (preschool - eighth grade) and subjects (Science, Art, Literacy, English, Phonics) in my time in Korea and Minnesota! In my free time I enjoy camping, traveling, and trying different restaurants.

Kirsten Mace: I am so excited to be part of SEEK again this year! I have taught the last year at Mora Elementary and the past 5 years at Hinckley Elementary School as the Art teacher. Before teaching at Hinckley, I was teaching in Seoul, South Korea as an Art, Science, and English teacher. In my free time I enjoy traveling, hiking, and sewing

Ms. Mac

Ms. Mace

Class Updates

Day 9 (Monday, June 24th)

Today we continued working on our final projects to get them ready for open house (Wednesday, June 26th)!

Students took all the information they researched on Friday and put it on a giant poster - along with a picture of their animal!

In the afternoon we started making our animals out of clay. We even got to dye the clay ourselves out of chalk pastels!

Day 8 (Friday, June 21st)

Today we started our final project! Each student is picking ANY animal they want to research. Students will research a bunch of important information about their animals - including habitat, weight, height, length, lifespan and cool facts.

We spent the morning researching and then the afternoon starting our habitat dioramas!

Day 7 (Thursday, June 20th)

Today we traveled to the Arctic and Antarctic! We learned all about the habitats of both poles - which animals live there, what they eat, how they stay warm, etc.

We conducted a science experiment to see if blubber actually works (surprise, it does!). We used ice water, crisco, and rubber gloves to test out our hypothesis: will our hand stay warm in ice water with blubber?

Day 6 (Tuesday, June 18th)

Today we went on our field trip to Wild River State Park! It was a BLAST!

At the park, we met with Park Ranger Shawn. He took us on a 2 hour hike where we played games, learned about plants native to MN, saw turtles and evidence of beavers, AND got bit by a ton of mosquitoes!

Back at the visitor center, we met a couple of people from the MN Wildlife Forestry. They showed us all the cool tools in their trucks and answered A LOT of questions. We learned a ton!

See what we did on our field trip below!

Day 5 (Monday, June 17th)

Today we learned all about food chains! We discussed producers, consumers, decomposers, plus more.

After snack we played a food chain running game in the gym (we would have gone outside, but the rain!!).

We each chose an animal at the top of the food chain and then thought about what that animal eats, and then what THAT animal eats, and so on. We created our own food chains with drawings of the animals and labels with producer, consumer, and decomposer.

Finally, we finished and hung up our rainforest murals from last week!

Day 4 (Friday, June 14th)

First week of Project SEEK in the books!

Today we ventured out of the water and into the rainforest. We learned about the 4 different layers in the rainforest and the animals that live there. We each choose a rainforest animal to paint and started creating a giant collaborative mural for our animals to go in. We worked together to add trees, branches, vines, flowers, plus more to our murals!

Day 3 (Thursday, June 13th, 2024)

The focus for today was on coral reef! We spent our morning learning all about how coral reef is formed, where you can find coral reef, and what animals call the coral reef their home.

In the afternoon, we made a 3D scuplture of coral reef and decorated it with animals and plants.

Day 2 (Wednesday, June 12th, 2024)

Today was another fun day spent learning about the ocean!

First, we learned the ocean has three layers - sunlight, twilight, and midnight - and we saw which animals live in each layer. Then, we did a science experiment showing the three layers using water bottles, oil, and blue food coloring. After snack, we put our ocean animal knowledge to the test! We went to the gym and played a running game where Ms. Mace said an ocean animals and students had to run to the layer where that animal lives. Finally, we painted the layers of the ocean and water colored different ocean animals for each layer.

Overall, a great day of Project SEEK!

Don't forget to ask your child what they learned today.

Day 1 (Tuesday, June 11th, 2024)

Day 1 of Project SEEK was a success!

We started off the day getting to know each other and meeting old & new friends. We played a few games, learned about what a habitat is, and thought of as many animals as we could for a habitat sorting class game.

Parent letter sent out via email 5/20:

Hello all,

My name is Ellie McElhenny (Ms. Mac) and my co teacher is Kirsten Mace (Ms. Mace). Together we will be teaching your child during Project SEEK in the class ‘Animal Adventures’. We are SO excited to meet everyone and have an awesome, inquisitive, artistic, and scientific time! If you need to get in touch with us our emails are: elliemcelhenny@gmail.com or kirsten.mace@gmail.com .

We ask that you have your child please bring the supplies listed below:

Box (amazon or shoebox) - this will be for our final habitat project
Scissors
Pencil
Markers or colored pencils
Glue bottle
Glue stick

Our field trip is on June 18th and we will be going to the Wild River State Park and learning with a naturalist! It is from 8:30 to 2:30 so please bring a packed lunch. If any parents would like to be a chaperone for the field trip please contact us by email by June 10th if you are interested.

Looking forward to Project SEEK 2024!

Ms. Mac & Ms. Mace

Coming soon! After our class starts in June, you'll see more info. and photos about what we're working on.

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