Hatching Salmon and Helping Our Community

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What an exciting week in the Otter classroom! On Monday, our long-awaited moment finally arrived—our salmon eggs began hatching! Students crowded around the tank to observe the tiny fish wiggling inside their eggs and using their tails to push their way out. They noticed that the alevin needed to stop frequently to rest, and after many hours, each one emerged with its egg sac still attached, providing essential nutrients. Next week, we will build on this real-world science by beginning our scientific writing unit and documenting each stage of the salmon life cycle.

We continued our engineering explorations with Mr. Peter this week, extending our work with snap circuits. Mr. Peter also surprised us with a traditional toy from Vietnam. Students had a wonderful time experimenting, predicting, and tinkering to discover how it worked—science and curiosity in action!

Otters also remained hard at work on our school-wide food drive. Each day we counted and tallied the donated items that arrived in the lobby. On Monday, students worked together to load Ms. Ariel’s truck bed completely full of canned food to help nourish our community. It was a proud moment and a wonderful example of teamwork and service. We will continue collecting canned food next week too!

As a culminating art project for our community unit, students used Sharpies and watercolors to depict an important place in our community. Drawing on everything they learned from our field trips and guest speakers, they created beautiful individual pieces that came together to form a collaborative community mural. As each student added their artwork, they explained why their chosen place was essential for a community to function. The final piece is truly something special!

Throughout the week, we continued adding to our November calendar and calculating the daily thermal units in our fish tank. Students loved comparing data from day to day. We also enjoyed many cozy autumn read-alouds and continued our fall photography and editing work with Ms. Rebecca. Our nature walks were a highlight this week—students collected natural materials for studio compositions and made fascinating discoveries in the cedar classroom, including insect larva, spiders, and worms. A group of students even collaborated to create a “playground” for some of these tiny creatures!

It was a week full of curiosity, collaboration, and joyful learning. We can’t wait to see what next week brings!

Can Food Drive and Costume Parade

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Our study of community continues to guide our learning, inspiring us to explore how people and places contribute to the world around us.

Last week we enjoyed a visit from Ms. Christina, a NICU nurse, who taught us about how Neonatal Intensive Care Units support babies and families in our community. She even brought stethoscopes for each student so we could experience a bit of what nurses do—such an inspiring and hands-on lesson!

Juliette gave a wonderful presentation about how theaters are an important part of our community. She even offered a behind-the-scenes peek at the Honk Jr. production!

This week, we were eager to find a way to help our community, so we launched a canned food drive to fill backpacks for people in need. Students created colorful posters and visited each classroom to explain our project. Every day, we’ve been collecting, sorting, and tallying the donations that come into the ELC lobby. Through this process, students are learning to categorize and record data using tally marks. On Monday, Jack’s mom will drive our donations to a local organization that helps feed families in our area.

In science, Mr. Peter joined us again for more engineering explorations. He brought in gyroscopes to demonstrate how they work and he worked with small groups on snap circuits and math explorations involving area, multiplication, volume, and data. This week we continued to closely monitor our salmon eggs, calculating daily thermal units to predict their hatch date—we think it will be next week! To top it all off, Leighton brought in a paper wasp nest for us to examine, adding another fascinating layer to our nature explorations.

Ms. Rebecca continued leading our photography sessions, helping students capture beautiful images of fall leaves and roses. Ms. Lucy and Mr. Gary added an interesting new material to our studio this week- jute fiber bags that could be painted and used with our wire creations. We also had several parent volunteers join us to support our writers during editing and publishing time—students were so proud to share their newly published stories!

In math, Ms. Deb work with small groups on a math fluency game called Knock Out, which has been a big hit in the classroom.

We also celebrated Halloween last week with our annual costume parade. The students looked absolutely delightful in their costumes and loved seeing the creative outfits of friends and teachers.

Our week also included some cozy reading time at the Pacific University Library, and we wrapped up our music-making sessions for the fall term with a sweet song presentation for families.

It’s been a joyful and action-packed week filled with learning, creativity, and community spirit.

Community Explorations and Salmon Eggs

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What an exciting and busy couple of weeks it’s been in our classroom. We’ve been fully immersed in our study of community—learning about the many people and places that help a community thrive.

Our community adventures have taken us all around town! We visited the Forest Grove Police Station, where officers taught us how they work to keep our community safe. We learned that their job involves a lot of problem-solving and written reports too! At the Forest Grove Library, Ms. Carolina gave us a behind-the-scenes tour, including a sneak peek at the renovation plans for the new children’s area (they look amazing!). We even got to see brand-new books that haven’t been released to the public yet and learned what happens to books after they’re returned in the drop box. Today, we toured the Forest Grove Post Office and discovered how mail is sorted, organized, and delivered—all the way to the outskirts of Tillamook! Students loved learning how important addresses are in helping mail reach the right people and sitting in the driver’s seat of a mail truck. We also explored the important role that farmers play in our community. After reading Zora’s Zucchini, we discussed how sharing food brings people together and helps communities grow stronger.

Last week, we hosted our Celebration of Community. Students were so proud to show their loved ones around the classroom, share their work, and talk about what they’ve been learning. It was heartwarming to see families connecting, exploring, and celebrating all the hard work our Otters have been doing.

Our classroom visitors have made the past two weeks extra special…

  • Ms. Kai-Wei taught us about Chinese calligraphy, and tomorrow Ms. Christina will visit to share about her work as a NICU nurse and how she helps families in our community.

  • Retired NASA engineer, Mr. Peter, has been working with our young engineers in the engineering area of the classroom and helping our mathematicians deepen their thinking.

  • Ms. Rebecca has been working with small groups on photography, guiding students through capturing and editing beautiful fall photos.

  • Ms. Lucy and Mr. Gary have joined us to lead studio explorations, supporting students as they create wire and collage compositions in our classroom studio.

To add to the excitement, our salmon eggs arrived last week too! We have approximately 200 eggs in our tank and are observing their development closely. Students are using math to calculate thermal units and predict when they’ll hatch—a thrilling blend of science and math in action.

It’s been an incredible (and busy!) stretch of hands-on learning, exploration, and artistic endevours. We can’t wait to see everyone in their fun Halloween costumes on Friday.

Fun Run

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We continued building connections and growing as learners through many exciting experiences this week. Students enjoyed reading with their college reading buddies, played a fun math game called Knock Out with Ms. Deb, and spent time editing their stories with the help of our amazing literacy volunteers. It’s inspiring to see how much progress our young authors are making!

Students also continued sharing their All About Me bags, learning more about one another and finding connections with classmates. On Tuesday, we visited our Otter Popcorn Stand, where students practiced counting change—a fun and tasty way to build real-world math skills!

Our fish tank is now all set up and ready for the arrival of our 200 salmon eggs next week. Students are eager to begin this exciting new science project. We also took a trip to the Pacific University Library, where students checked out fresh new books to enjoy.

We ended the week on a high note with the Fun Run and ELC Picnic. It was such a joy to connect with families, cheer on our runners, and celebrate together under the sunny Friday sky.

All About Me Bags

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It’s been another busy week of learning, creativity, and connection in our classroom!

Students had a great time sharing their All About Me bags, each filled with special items that tell the story of who they are. We loved learning more about one another and discovering all the commonalities that connect us as a community.

Our parent volunteer team is now up and running! We’re so grateful for the parents and grandparents who are joining us to help with publishing stories, running the popcorn stand, and teaching math board games. In the coming weeks, we’ll also welcome volunteers to teach us about photography and lead more art studio lessons.

Outdoors, students are getting stronger and more confident on the monkey bars each week! Ms. Julie brought in bouncy balls for campus playtime, and students have been joyfully experimenting with some early physics concepts—force, acceleration, momentum, and collisions—through hands-on play.

This week we also enjoyed our regular music, PE, and library time. When we learned that a Pacific community member was going through a difficult time, our compassionate students created artwork to lift their spirits.

In Writer’s Workshop, our student authors celebrated publishing and adding 12 new stories to our classroom library. We also had a visit from college students who came to read with us. We can’t wait to read with them again next week.

Our Families

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We started the week exploring in our art studio with Ms. Casey. Students continued creating beautiful compositions that explored lines, textures, space, and balance. Their growing confidence and creativity as young artists have been wonderful to watch! On Tuesday, we watched Sea Lion class perform skits. Each skit was created to teach a specific tool that could help students learn and grow. We learned about the 3-breath pause, being flexible like spaghetti, how we get better at what we practice, the U-turn (a do-over), and salt through the sieve (letting the little things go)—strategies we can all use in our daily lives. This week we also continued to care for our herb garden, watering and observing the plants as they grow. Students played joyfully outside in all kinds of weather—stomping through puddles and enjoying rainy afternoons in the sandbox! We also began learning about each other’s families. Students proudly shared their family photos, sparking lots of smiles and connections. Asayo’s family visited to teach us about her dad’s Hawaiian culture. Her family even brought a book and snack to share. We also created art to depict our families and talked about what makes each one special and unique. We finished our September calendar—it was exciting to look back at all we’ve learned and accomplished already! We also created our October calendar to look ahead at the fun and learning to come. On Friday, we gathered for our whole-school Friday Summit. Kate represented our class beautifully, using a clear, confident voice to share what the Otters have been learning. Students loved sitting beside their siblings and former preschool reading buddies during this joyful community gathering. We ended the week with a field trip to the Pacific University library, where students proudly used their official library cards to check out books. Their excitement for reading was contagious. It was a week full of art, learning, family, and community—what a wonderful way to welcome October!

Name Art & Studio Explorations

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We had such a joyful and art-filled week together! We began Monday with the wordless picture book Chalk, which shows chalk drawings magically coming to life. This was the perfect lead-in to our downtown Forest Grove trip to admire the chalk art from last weekend’s annual Chalk Art Festival. We discussed city traditions and how art can bring people together. In the studio this week, our art teacher Ms. Casey guided us through lessons on composition, line, design, space, texture, balance, and contrast. We created both a collaborative class piece and individual compositions that were full of creativity and contrast. Students are practicing how to think like artists, see things from different perspectives, and design thoughtful compositions. We also finished our name art projects, where students used bubble letters and a variety of lines and techniques to showcase their names in unique and colorful ways. To wrap up the week, we came together for our very first Friday Summit. The whole school gathered to sing songs, share what each class has been working on, and celebrate our community. Students especially loved getting to sit with siblings, buddies, and former teachers.

Self Portraits, Art Studio, and Herb Garden

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What a creative and hands-on week we’ve had together!

Early in the week, Mr. Mark helped us plant an herb garden. We planted mint, lavender, rosemary, and more. Students are now carefully watering and tending to the plants. When they’ve grown bigger, we’ll be able to harvest them to use in recipes—and maybe even a little potion-making fun!

We also had our first art lesson with our art teacher, Ms. Casey, this week. We had the bonus support of Ms. Lucy and Mr. Gary for our artistic explorations. Together we talked about the many kinds of studios—dance, gymnastics, clay, paint, glass, and art studios—and began the exciting project of creating our very own art studio in the classroom. We explored and played with loose parts in our new art studio. Students experimented with the properties of different materials, using them to represent themselves, build fantastical forests, and design imaginative creations. It was wonderful to see their creativity come alive! Students also played and explored the possibilities of different writing utensils. They discovered that crayons are excellent for shading while markers can be great for highlighting. Students played around with creating all sorts of lines, shading, and patterns using different writing tools. Small groups of students also went on a nature walk to collect interesting natural materials to add to our studio.

This week we also had our first music-making session with Ms. McKenzie and put the finishing touches on our self-portraits. One of the best parts was trying to guess which portrait belonged to which classmate. Families, see if you can guess which portrait was created by your child!

It was such a joyful week of artistic endeavors, creativity, and curiosity.

Building Community

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Our second week together was filled with learning, creativity, and community-building. We continued getting to know one another and practicing our routines. Students shared their All About Me posters with the class, which was a fun way to learn more about each other. In Writers’ Workshop, students worked hard on their individual stories. As students finished stories, they shared their published pieces with the class and received a compliment as well as constructive feedback from their peers. We are practicing how to both give and receive feedback so that we can all grow as writers. Science was extra exciting this week! Mr. Mark discovered a huge nest of stinging insects in our cedar classroom. Our outdoor classroom had to be closed for multiple days (we played on campus instead), but Mr. Mark brought us a specimen to examine under the microscope. After researching, students came to the consensus that the insect was a type of wasp called a yellow jacket. Mr. Mark wore a bee suit and tried several methods to remove them—and after much effort, he succeeded! Now we can safely play in our outdoor classroom again. Davis also brought in a snake skin, which we examined closely under the microscope. During word work time we reviewed short vowel sounds and the floss rule. We practiced spelling words with partners using whiteboards and learned how to check each other’s work. On Friday, we took a practice spelling assessment and discussed how these checks help teachers know what students already understand and what they need more practice with. We also worked on our penmanship and writing conventions. Our classroom is becoming more colorful, too! We created beautiful illustrations to accompany our daily schedule and continued filling in our September calendar, coloring in the days that have passed. In art, we began detailed self-portraits. A handful of students finished theirs this week, and the rest will complete theirs next week. Each day we wrapped up by giving shout-outs to classmates who embodied our community values through their words and actions. It was a joyful, busy week of learning and community.

First Week

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It’s been a fantastic first week! We spent our days learning new routines, building our community, and exploring many fun activities together. We worked together to discuss what’s important to us and created our community values—a special guide for how we want to treat each other and our classroom (see below). We also spent time playing with playdough, exploring outside, doing bubbles, and learning to use watercolors—all while getting to know each other and reviewing classroom rules and procedures. In math we began our math books and learned a fun game called Snap It to practice our math fact fluency. Juliette shared a story about losing her first tooth, which was the perfect launch into writers’ workshop. Ask your child to tell you about the story they are writing. We also began our word work studies to refine our penmanship and practice reading and spelling challenging words. We learned a yoga routine to help our calm our bodies, and we practiced being still and focused during our guided meditation time. Finally, we had a joyful celebration for Leighton’s birthday. It has been a wonderful week of learning, creativity, and community-building. We can’t wait to see what next week brings!

Otter Community Values 


In our class, everyone is welcome, included, and heard. We are kind, curious, and joyful. We take care of each other and our materials. We make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. We use tools to solve problems peacefully, and we never hurt or hit. 

We are 

mathematicians,

writers, 

readers, 

scientists, 

artists, 

explorers, 

engineers &

music makers 

Together we learn and play outside every day.