Whale Tales from The Grade 2's

at Springfield Junior, Cape Town, South Africa

Term 1 (Jan - April, 2004)

Our two Grade 2's enjoyed reading and using the wonderful online games and resources on the "Whale Tales" home page.  We had some difficulty in obtaining an appropriate fiction book abut whales although we enjoyed doing some of the activities in a whale activity book written by Mike Bruton (ISBN 0-620-22204-2).  We also found out our facts in "The essential guide to whales in SA", also by Mike Bruton - Mrs B's husband.  Eventually a grade 2 brought "The Whales' Journey" by Stephen Martin for us to read.  We examined a world map and traced Grey whale's migration with his mother.  We based our thinking maps on our discoveries and personal reflections.  Many of the girls have visited Hermanus near Cape Town during the Whale Festival and have sighted whales from very close-up.  We compiled a list of whale facts and acted out some of the movements of whales we had seen in Hermanus.   Here are a few of our Inspiration thinking-maps.   Inspiration thinking maps connect South African Curriculum Standards in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. 

Click HERE to see more of our Inspiration projects