This week’s lessons:
This time of year, and again in the spring, I talk with the students about sneaker waves on the Oregon coast. (Warning: That video may be a little intense for the younger kids; you might want to preview it first.) My family loves the beach, and in spite of safety warnings, knowing about sneaker waves, and being, by nature, pretty cautious people, we were almost taken down by a sneaker wave last spring. So sharing this video, which aired last fall, is a sort of community service from our family to yours. Fall and spring are when the coast is the most unpredictable, so let’s be careful out there.
Now on to something a little less serious.
Pixieland was a fun amusement park, near the town of Otis, just outside of Lincoln City, where we went when I was a kid. It was open for a few years, then disappeared. What happened behind the scenes? I always imagined it was like a story from the vaudeville theater that was at the park. “You must pay the rent!” “I can’t pay the rent!” or something like that. My sister and I were always trying to pick out the exact location when we drove by. This video (which is from 2011) answered all of our questions.
Here is a new clip from Oregon Field Guide about the gray whales we see occasionally. Be prepared — the captain really loves whales.
More, more, more: We’re also spending a lot of time in lab on Google Docs, learning how to put together presentations (similar to PowerPoint), create documents (for stories, poems, letters and songs) and build our own websites! Kind of awesome, really, to see the kids use this amazing learning tool. They’re memorizing their usernames and passwords, so please ask them to share those with you and show your their files. They will need Google Docs for middle school and high school, too. As long as they are with our school district, this will be their cloud storage. I do encourage the students to create a second personal Google Docs account. They can share/send their files to that account and have a back-up, in case they change districts or just want to have an extra parking spot, so to speak.
Enjoy your week! And here, have a few photos ๐
— Mrs. R
Pelican squadron (that’s what a flock of pelicans is called, for real), heading back to Depoe Bay.
Purple & green!
Yaquina Head Light
Can you see him?
(Photos by Steve Rawley)