Whale Tales Newsletters: Mrs. McGowan's 2nd Grade

aMarci McGowan H. W. Mountz School Spring Lake, NJ
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The Ocean ... Whale Tales Newsletters
starfish and shell line Becky.jpg (8179 bytes)

Whales are ...

Mammals
Mysterious, fantastic
Splashing, breaching, diving
They breathe air through a blowhole.
Singing, playing, protecting
Enormous, endangered
Whales

Diamante poem by Mrs. McGowan's 2nd Grade,
April 2004

Welcome! Last year our class was involved in a school-wide ocean study as part of our annual MARE (Marine Activities Resources & Education) program. The students learned about life on rocky shores as first graders and are looking forward to learning more about sandy beaches this spring.

But ... who can resist the mysteries of the deep ocean? My class was very excited to study whales through a collaborative online project, Whale Tales, hosted by Susan Silverman, Pattie Knox, and Linda Brandon. Be sure to see all the student work from many classes and their excellent whale resources and online activities.

~ Marci McGowan

  Our Whale Tales Newsletter Project

About Our Whale Tales Newsletter Project

Our Student Showcase

Whale Books

Online Activities

Our Ocean Study

This is Colt's tail fluke. He's the whale we adopted in 2003. You can read more about this humpback whale by clicking the picture. The Whale Center of New England is a non-profit organization dedicated to whale and marine research, conservation, and education in eastern Massachusetts. See their Adopt-A-Whale Program. We're adopting Tornado this year.

We began by sharing many whale-related books and Internet sites. Zoom Whales and Whale Times were the most useful sites for us.

The class seemed to appreciate whale fiction as much as the wonderful books loaded with information about whales. Our class books were in high demand!

Favorites were Humphrey the Lost Whale, Dear Mr. Blueberry, A Whales' Song, and a Garden of Whales.

Written responses ...

Class Poem ...
We wrote a diamante poem (our version of this format). Volunteers offered suggestions for each line. Revisions were easily made by rereading from chalkboard. My students really enjoy this kind of whole-class writing. Our version of this diamond-shaped format included:

One noun about the topic	Mammals
Two adjectives	Mysterious, fantastic
Three verbs ending in __ ing	Splashing, breaching, diving
A sentence	They breathe air through a blowhole.
Three verbs ending in __ing	Singing, playing, protecting
Two adjectives	Enormous, endangered
Another noun about the topic	Whales

Whale Tales Newsletters ...

Dreaming about riding through the ocean with a whale became the topic most of my students chose to use in their writing response. They combined their fictional piece with whale facts, illustrations, and Microsoft's Word Art (learning how to use this technology was fun) in our Whale Tales Newsletters.

Sample newsletters are being shared on this page. You can see the actual work with their Word Art in doc or pdf files to download:

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doc PDF doc PDF

Student Showcase
Click on the blue names to go directly to that student's work. Several images are being loaded - please be patient - it's worth the wait! Use the back arrow on your computer to return to this menu.

Lia	Tiffany	Grace	Chelsea	Kristen
Sean	Mary Beth	Daniel	Justin	Charlie6
Nate	Conor		Patrick	Lauren

Our Classroom Whale & Dolphin Books

A Dolphin Is Not A Fish by Betsey Chessen
A Garden of Whales by Maggie Steincrohn Davis
A Symphony of Whales by Steve Schuch
Baby Whale by Lynn Wilson
Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James
Humphrey the Lost Whale by Wendy Tokuda
Journey of a Humpback Whale by Caryn Jenner
The Whales' Song by Dyan Sheldon
Whales & Dolphins by Vincent Serventy

Smithsonian Collection Books

Dolphin's First Day - The Story of a Bottlenose Dolphin by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
Giant of the Sea - A Story of a Sperm Whale
by Courtney Granet Raff
Orca Song by Michael Armour

In Touch With Pink Dolphins
by Lia

The Traveling Dolphin

lia1.jpg (23142 bytes) I've always wanted to travel to Italy. Guess what I did? I rode on a dolphin. It was called a Pink Dolphin. I named her Lovely.
I went through the ocean with her. On the way to Italy, I saw sea animals like octopus, jelly fish, seals, sharks and whales. While we were there, we went to Rome and by accident, we scared people on a boat by a bridge. We saw the Roman Coliseum and Lovely bought me an Italian flag. It was so cool! I was so sad because I had to go home. I wanted to stay there longer, but I got back on Lovely and we went back home. All the way home I was talking about it and I said "thank you' to Lovely.

Pink Dolphins

* They live in the Amazon River.
* They have been found more than 1600 kilometers (1000 miles) up the river.
* They are also known as boto.
* They have leaf-shaped teeth and eat squid and fish.
* They are born gray and then turn to pink.

Click the picture to learn more about this animal.

Gracie and the Beluga
by Grace

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Gracie. She loved whales. Her favorite whale was a beluga. One night she had an amazing dream. Her dream was so cool. She heard a knock on her door. She opened the door. Guess what she saw? She saw a beluga whale!

They took a plane to Ohio. They played games in a big hotel. The hotel had a pool big enough for the whale. It was a blast! They had so much fun. Gracie and the beluga whale took a plane home. She felt happy when the dream ended.

Beluga Whales

The beluga is a toothed whale.

The eat squid, octopi, and fish.

They are hunted by orcas and polar bears.

They use echolocation to locate their prey.

Click the picture to learn more about this animal.

The Best Dream Ever
by Chelsea

It all started when I was in bed. I live right by the sea. I heard a really strange sound. I looked outside my window to see what it was. It was a dolphin! We were learning about dolphins in school so I knew it was a bottlenose dolphin. I climbed outside and saw the dolphin in the water. I went in the water to see it. All of a sudden the dolphin started to move and I was on it! I thought my family would know I was gone or that they would think I got kidnapped but it was night and they were asleep.

We went to all sorts of places. Our journey had just begun. First we went to a shipwreck and I couldn't believe my eyes, I saw an old trunk with magical pearls. Then we found a hideout on an island. After that we started to head home. When I got home it was already morning. My family didn't know a thing. I said it was just a dream but then I saw the magical pearl and heard a dolphin calling my name. Maybe it was a dream, or maybe it was not!

Bottlenose Dolphins

Some dolphins get caught in fishing nets.

Sharks will prey on dolphins.

Like other whales, dolphins swim by moving their tail up and down and use echolocation to sense their prey.

The bottlenose dolphin is found worldwide in tropical and temperate waters.

Click the picture to learn more about this animal.

Going On A Narwhal Watch
by Tiffany

Riding With A Narwhal

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     I've always wanted to travel through the Atlantic ocean. One night there was a knocking on the door. It was a narwhal! He wanted to see if I wanted a ride through the ocean. I never thought this would happen.
     We went through a secret path to get to the water. When we got there, we flipped through the air. It was scary when we went upside down, but it was fun too.
After a while we had to go home. It felt great to ride with a whale. We had to go home. Even though I felt sad, I had to say goodbye and then I went home to bed.

Narwhals

Have a small mouth and a long tusk that can be up to 10 ft.

They can grow to be about 16 feet long

They have a little blowhole on top of their head

They are toothed whales and eat fish, squid, shrimp, and other marine animals.

Click the picture to learn more about this animal.