Learning in Action | Temescal Creek OLD

Thank you so much for those of you who joined us for our “Photosynthesis Explained Simply” skits on Friday morning. We combined our learning in science with our fluency practice. It was lovely to have the opportunity to share our learning with you! If you would like to see the video that we based the readers theater on, please visit this website. As we prepared for this skit, we noted what showed fluency – smooth reading, appropriate expression, and paying attention to punctuation. We also needed to listen to one another so that we knew when to say our line, and when to say things in unison.

Creating signs for our parts.

Practicing our lines in class.

It’s showtime for this photosynthesis skit!

Another performance of the skit.

Enrapt audience.

Encore performance!

In the vein of photosynthesis, we brought in a water plant to see photosynthesis in action. While it looked like a plain old plant underwater with occasional bubbles, those bubbles are evidence that photosynthesis is happening! Photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and energy from the sun to make sugars the plant needs to live and, in a sense, “exhales” oxygen. So the air bubbles the water plant is producing shows photosynthesis in action!
We made predictions of what the water plant, funnel, test tube, and water level will look like on Monday:
“I think that there will be a lot of bubbles. So many bubbles that the plant will be shaking.”
“I think the water is going to evaporate a little bit.”
“The plant might grow so fast that it’ll grow into the funnel and get stuck in there.”
“There might be a lot of little bubbles and the funnel will float.”
“After a long time, there will be a lot of bubbles in there and lift off.”
“Bubbles go up and they float up and they make a big bubble and it’ll pop and go into the air.”
“The bubbles will go up to the top of the test tube and push water out and eventually fill the tube with air and not water.”
We’ll see what happens on Monday!

A large water plant that was too big for our experiment. WIth the help of Jeff, the middle school science teacher, we were able to figure it out, and he lent us one of his pond water plants!

Encased in the funnel and tube, we looked to see what we could observe.

There were little air bubbles rising from the plant.

What will happen?

Connecting with that plant observation, Julianne again opened our eyes to how artists utilize different media to create and innovate. This week, she introduced us to British artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey and their living portraits. They used their knowledge of photosynthesis to create portraits! Knowing that plants need light to grow, they covered a surface with fast growing seeds in clay and projected a negative image of a photograph onto it. The seed covered surface was in a dark room and since the projection was its only source of light, the plants began to grow in the shape of the projected image. “The grass [grew] in shades of green directly proportional to the amount of light they [received], thus creating a tinted image of the photo.” For more information, click on this link.

Math
We continued our work on multiplication and also started division. To practice multiplication, we used our triangle fact cards as well as playing math games to help us become more familiar with our multiplication facts. Some children thought it would be useful to drill through the cards. Others played “War” with the triangle cards. As their familiarity grew, they started seeing relationships between certain facts. “Oh! 3×4 is the same thing as 4×3!”
Building on the Temescalians’ understanding of multiplication as repeated addition, we explained division was sharing a larger number of things into equal groups. To illustrate this, we asked the Temescalians to divide by skip counting. They began to see that 12 divided by 3 was the same thing as keeping track as they skip counted by 3 up to 12. It is a skill that we will continue to practice, but a very practical way to see the relationship between multiplication and division. Our main goal of this unit is for the Temescalians to have an understanding of what it means to “multiply” or “divide”, and have a deeper understanding of how numbers are related.

Temescalians modeled how they could help each other practice math facts – by covering the product on the top and checking to see if their partner got the correct product.

Continuing to make triangle multiplication flash cards

Dividing by grouping things in sets.

Dividing by skip counting.

Using arrays are helpful in multiplication.

Thanksgiving Roll and Cover – solo.

Thanksgiving Roll and Cover with a partner.

A Temescalian taught us a game called “Close the Box” that involved chance and trying to have the lowest sum at the end of a turn.

It was a hit with the kids!

Real Estate Math – a tried and true favorite.

Baking gives the kids an opportunity to put to use their understanding of fractions (the next unit) and problem solving. It seemed like a timely thing to bake pumpkin bread to share with grown ups for Family Reading Friday and as a special treat to follow the photosynthesis skit performances. When the 1 teaspoon wouldn’t fit in one of the spice containers, we figured out that 2 of the 1/2 teaspoons would suffice. We also talked about the science of baking, and the difference in technique between measuring flour vs. brown sugar. In the end, it seemed like a hit!

Writing
We are nearing the culmination of our Thanksgiving writing expository! Most of the Temescalians are nearing the end of their drafting and are in the process of peer editing each others’ work. As they work, they are asked to not only help their peers see mechanical errors they have missed like capitalization, punctuation, and spelling, but to steer them towards something that is more interesting to read. We have modeled incorporating similes and metaphors in our writing to give the reader a fuller experience to really grasp what we are trying to convey.

Starting our writing period with a “Rocket Write” – we are still writing for 7 minutes non-stop and then 3 minutes of illustrating the writing or continuing to write!

Using finger spaces! Go Temescalian!!

This is a fantastic start!

Adding juicy details with strips of paper as a sort of extended caret.

Using a “spell checker” to try spelling a word on our own 2 times before getting a teacher check for the correct spelling.

Words Their Way has some kids practicing blends at the beginning of words while other kids are zooming in on the long vowel vs. short vowel sounds and spellings. Cursive had us practicing the lowercase “s” and “r”.

Reading
We continue to encourage the kids to read “just right books” and find connections, visualize, and make predictions as they read. A few guided reading groups were pulled to work on fluency – paying attention to punctuation, intonation, and checking for understanding. One group read The Mountain that loved a Bird by Alice McLerran and illustrated by Eric Carle, and another group read Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen. Both groups made connections with the characters in the story, and with one another as they took turns reading aloud. The group reading The Mountain that loved a Bird illustrated their favorite part from the story while the group reading Molly’s Pilgrim made their own paper dolls.

As we wrapped up Peter Pan, those who read The Mountain that loved a Bird made a text-text connection between the bird, Joy, and Wendy’s daughter and descendants. It was an exciting moment when it clicked and we realized the similarity between the two very different stories!

Social and Emotional Learning
Third grade has many academic challenges, but social skills are an often unspoken area of growth during this time in Temescalians’ lives. They need to learn how to navigate social situations where they need to be firm with their own stance while still considering the others’ side in the matter. We introduced Speak Up and Get Along! by Scott Cooper as a springboard to practice these skills. We learned four tools to express yourself:
(1) The Power I – making “I” statements and highlighting your truth in the situation
(2) The “No Thanks” – Asserting what you need in a nice way.
(3) Asking Questions – Not sure about something? Ask questions! Face-to-face conversations is always better than assuming what the other person is thinking. (A mantra in our class is, “When in doubt, check it out!”)
(4) The Squeaky Wheel – If you need something, keep asking for it until you get it. (This tool needs some insight. If there is a chance that you might get hurt, it is best to do the “Vanishing Act” and distance yourself from the individual until another opportunity arises.)
Temescalians took turns trying out different tones and we gave them feedback about what would work best in each situation. Kids also practiced role playing different scenarios to see what it would be like in that situation.

A few other moments from this week:

Finding out which evaporated first between: Covered vs. Uncovered, Shallow vs. Tall, Flat vs. Crumpled Up. Overall, we noticed that if water was in a shallow dish, it would evaporate fastest because it had the most exposure to air and/or sunlight.

The Rosetta comet orbiter and its lander, Philae, made contact with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12 after 10 years of traveling through space!