Mrs. Wanke's Wonderful Whales: Pirate Day 2020

ARRRR Matey!

When Mrs. Wanke told us that we did not want to miss today...she was NOT kidding! We came to school to find Mrs. Wanke dressed like a pirate and a treasure chest locked up! The treasure box had three kinds of locks securing it. One was a number code, another was a letter code, and the last one was a key lock. We wanted to know what we had to do to see what was inside the treasure box. Mrs. Wanke explained that we would have to do a series of challenges to learn the codes and earn the key! We were ready and motivated to complete these tasks!

The first thing we did today was listen to a pirate story.

Then Mrs. Wanke explained to us our first challenge. We were going to create our very own buried treasure map. We had to follow specific directions to create this map.

When we finished this challenge we earned a the letter K. Mrs. Wanke explained there would be two more challenges to earn the letters E and Y to spell the word KEY. She went on to explain that when we spelled the word key, we would get the key to open the lock.

After we finished the first challenge, we set sail the the Torstenson Property for some more pirate fun! When we arrived we saw Pirate Wanke's ship!

Pirate Wanke shared that our next challenge was a STEM challenge! Our challenge was to work with our partner to create a pirate ship that could actually float and sail across our ocean (kid pool) carrying Mrs. Wanke's keys.

We were only given certain materials. Aluminum foil, 3 strips of masking tape, a small ball of clay, a coffee filter, and a straw.

We worked very hard with the materials we were given to create a boat with a working sail. We tried and failed and tried again until we got it! We saw GROWTH MINDSET in action. We had SO much fun creating these and watching them sail across the ocean. We would jump and cheer for each other when the boat made it across the ocean.

This challenge earned us the letter E!

After lunch we came back and were ready to get that treasure box unlocked! We had several activities to do during math! The first one was to create as a team a giant 100's chart with gold coins!

This was a VERY difficult challenge! We worked so hard and persevered! We erupted into cheers when we got our last letter Y! We finally got one of the locks open!

Our next math challenge was to find the missing number in the number bonds. Each correct answer gave us a letter for the code below. The secret code spelled out the three number for the combination lock.

Once again, Mrs. Wanke was SO impressed with how hard we worked to complete this challenge. All our hard work paid off and we learned the combination and opened our second lock! Our final challenge of the day had to deal with our spelling! Mrs. Wanke gave us a sheet of paper for us to write words that had the spelling pattern we have been working on. On this page four spaces were circled. If we successfully spelled the words, the circled spaces would reveal the letter combination for our final lock!