We finished our year with a Celebration of Learning, working with 3-D shapes, and a dance party!
The Temescalians worked so hard to create their research books on local animals. The entire process included going to the library, selecting appropriate books, culling through and pulling out pertinent facts, and then synthesizing all of this information into an organized book with illustrations, “Did You Know?” factoids, glossary, index, and bibliography! Whew! It was quite an involved interdisciplinary project that we were so excited to share with grown ups!
During the Celebration of Learning, we also shared the information that we have learned about wetlands, a local ecosystem, and how we can introduce rain gardens to help catch sediment and filter water. We then split up into smaller groups to share our books. Finally, we feasted on a sumptuous potluck breakfast!
The Temescalians also had a chance to read their books to peers from other small groups during reading. They were both impressed and inspired by each other’s research!
Using their expertise on local animals, we tied in our all plants and animals are connected in a food web. There is not only a hierarchy of a food chain, but one animal may be the prey for multiple animals while another animal may be the prey of one animal but the predator of another. Everything is reliant on one another within each ecosystem. The Ohlone people understood this and would always leave some behind for the next season.
We wrapped up our study of 2-D (two dimensional) shapes and 3-D (three dimensional) shapes. It is always hard to try to think about and sketch 3-D shapes from memory. Having a physical object helps the mind make sense of the shape so building them is an even better way to understand the aspects of a 3-D shape! We used marshmallows as vertices and toothpicks as edges, and the kids got to enjoy the “vertices” after building the 3-D shapes! Spatial reasoning came into play and the Temescalians made so many observations as they formed prisms and pyramids. Ask your Temescalian about what the difference is between a prism and a pyramid.
To reinforce understanding about shapes and attributes, we played “Attribute Castle”! This game involves guessing what a shape is by narrowing it down according to the attributes of shape, color, size, and thickness. 4 kids are chosen as “gates” with each gate having a clue about the shape and a volunteer will choose a shape. If the shape fulfills the 1st gate’s clue, the child moves on to the 2nd gate, and so on until all gates have been passed to reveal the shape.
We always enjoy celebrating a Temescalian’s birthday! It was especially nice to hear from this Temescalian’s grown ups and brothers answer questions about his younger self.
After all of our work with the Ohlone Herbal Center, we decided to put the calendula that we planted with Mariah to good use! We picked and dried the flowers. Then we put the petals in oil to infuse for 3-4 weeks. The oil was ready by the last week of school so made some soothing salve with it! Please click on the following links for “How to Harvest and Dry Calendula Flowers“, “How to Make Calendula Infused Oil“, and “How to Make Salve“. We talked about fractions and different states of matter as we prepared the calendula salve. The recipe called for 1 part of beeswax to 6 parts of oil. We talked about what that meant, in terms of fractions. Then we made predictions about what the salve would look like in the end. Would it be more liquid, like the calendula oil, or more solid, like the beeswax? A few thought that it would be more like the oil while others thought it would end up more solid, like beeswax. The small group who helped make the salve also chose to put peppermint essential oil in the salve for a more soothing smell. The end result was a solid that was still malleable! What an interesting state of matter! Temescalians commented on how much they enjoyed the chosen scent and how soothing it felt on their hands! Success! We went from seed to make a salve!
Rebecca came by for our last information literacy session and introduced a few books Temescalians could look into over the summer. She made a puzzle of the opening paragraphs of each of the 7 books and the Temescalians tried their best to piece them together again.
We watched the painted lady butterflies emerge from their chrysalis this week and we let them go after school on Wednesday! Thanks again for bringing them in, Charlie and Terezia!
Our last day consisted of signing yearbooks, making treats, and having a dance party. We put the marshmallows left over from the 3-D shape making to use and made two batches of rice krispy treats! We enjoyed these while we listened to the last part of Chasing Secrets by Gennifer Choldenko. We shared observations of how we were at the beginning of the year and how we’ve changed over the course of the year with a “At the beginning of the year I… Now I… ” writing piece. It was a great reflection of the huge growth we have made over the span of this 3rd grad year!
A big thank you to Deb for coordinating and putting the yearbooks together! They are full of wonderful memories from this year!
We had such a wonderful year with you all. We are really going to miss you next year, but we have a saying, “Once a Temescalian, always a Temescalian!” We hope you drop by next year! We would love to hear how your summer was and catch up with you!
And now, a few housekeeping things…
– Remember to keep up with touch typing over the summer! Use your Typing Club class login and password to help you!
Website: https://tbstyping.typingclub.com/
Login: your name and last initial@theberkeleyschool.org For example, joes@theberkeleyschool.org
Password: inspire2015
– Rebecca graciously brought in library books from the public library and we are still missing a book called Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. If you have this book at home, please let us know and we’ll get it back to Rebecca. Of if you’ve returned it to the public library, just let us know too so that Rebecca doesn’t have to worry about it! Thanks!
– We will be sending out an email with a google doc folder of pictures from this year.
