In celebration of World Whale Day today, our Book Club Hour at Thorntree Preparatory School (foundation phase) was all about whales!
First the children learned about whales – the different types of whales we can view from South African beaches, why we see them, the water acrobatics they do, the physiology of a whale, what they eat, whale babies, whale migration, whaling years ago, and the songs of humpback whales and other sounds whales make under the water. The children were full of questions like “Can whales do a front or a back flip?”, “Can whales bite?”, “Can you drown when you’re next to a whale and it breaches?” etc.
The kids then physically measured the sizes of the 6 most well known whales to give perspective of how big whales really are in relation to their own size.
Afterwards, we read a true story about Humphrey, a humpback whale, who got separated from his pod and got lost up the Sacramento river in San Francisco in 1985, and how caring people helped him find his way back to the ocean.
The session ended with a discussion about Perseverance (HOM #1), and how it would’ve worked out for Humphrey if the people didn’t even try to help, or gave up when things didn’t quite work out at first.
The kids were then introduced to a variety of other books available in our library about whales (including Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies), and others about persevering and not giving up.
