We wrapped up our collections for Craig Merrick for him to bring with him to North Dakota. He was blown away by the support our community poured out for the people who are camping out in Standing Rock. While the current news is that the Army Corps of Engineering has denied the permit necessary to build the oil pipeline in the area, many “water protectors” have decided to stay through the winter. We hope to reconnect with Craig to hear about his time in North Dakota. For more perspectives, please read a story from NPR. In Their Own Words: The “Water Protectors” of Standing Rock.
We participated in the Hour of Code from Code.org on Monday. The kids spent an hour using Block to code, clicking and dragging different commands to complete challenges. The kids were invested in their time. At home, you may want to help your Temescalian practice the motion of clicking and dragging. We explained that you use your thumb to press down while your index finger gently moves around the track pad. We had the kids practice this motion on the back of their left hands. They were delighted with the current and familiar cartoon characters and enjoyed trying to accomplish each task.
Our study in math is moving on to the 3s multiplication fact family, using 9 lines, while also introducing division. Division may sometimes be a more intuitive operation because we do it so often in our daily life. When we have food we need to divide amongst ourselves, when we prepare snack. We divide things amongst ourselves so often. The main idea about division is that each portion must be a fair and equal share. There are many strategies to support kids’ understanding of division. Given the number of sets, they would draw the set and then split the original number (dividend) amongst those different sets (divisors) to find the answer (quotient). We did this with drawings or cubes. We also used our understanding of a number line to help us skip count to the final answer. Temescalians noticed that division problems seemed related to multiplication problems, and they are! Good connection, Temescalians!
Our week was a rainy one, but we found ways to entertain ourselves indoors! Drawing, reading, building with kappa blocks, Legos, and pattern blocks were some options the Temescalians took to.
During Super Science and Art, we revisited the chia seed plantings that we put together before Thanksgiving. We based this project on the work of the artist duo – Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey who make portraits out of plants. “Green Portraits” We created shapes, placed them over cardboard we seeded with chia seeds and waited. It was evident that over the Thanksgiving break, that the plants were not doing very well. Upon closer inspection, you could see that some had sprouted but had dried up and died. We brought the plants inside and reflected on what we saw and what might have happened:
-we wet the paper towels but they dried out
-they probably didn’t get enough sun
-we didn’t put them in a sunny place. We forgot about them and didn’t give them the right treatment
-we watered it the first day b/c we wet the paper towels and someone watered it the 3rd day but then no one watered it so they dried out and died.
-we didn’t give it them all three of plant needs
A wondering that we had was why the plants stuck to the cardboard? One Temescalian posited that the roots must have attached to the paper towel but dried out.
We made observations and with colored pencil, drew where we thought the grass would have grown, if it had worked the way that we thought.
Before our field trip to the Oakland Museum of California, we looked at an image of an Ohlone dwelling and did a thinking routine (Think, Puzzle, Explore) to get our minds ready for our study of the Ohlone people.
We took a trip to the Oakland Museum of California to hear about Ohlone culture from an educator of Ohlone descent. Corina shared about where the Ohlone used to live and how they used to live, as well as the efforts today to preserve the culture and lands of her people. Moving into the museum, we saw handiworks & artifacts from the gallery of California History. We saw images of what the land could have looked like long ago in the gallery of California Art. The gallery of California Natural Sciences contained many animals set up in dynamic positions within their habitats.
Highlights from their visit:
-Big painting of landscape with horses
-Glass cases of animals (Two bear cubs. One eating berries from a branch. Other one was going to catch a fox)
-Stuffed animals. Desert landscape. A bunch of animals hiding. Big mountain goat. We were looking for what animals would use for food in this landscape.
-Learning about animals that the Ohlone used in the desert
-Oakland when it was just oak trees
-Stuffed animals with a coyote chasing a jack rabbit. From one side you could see the jack rabbit. From the other side, you couldn’t.
-A wolf and a wolverine fighting over a medium sized mammal. Maybe a muskrat.
-Story of two fawns playing with baby bear. The fawns hurt baby bear and momma bear started chasing them. The fawns went on a rock. The momma bear scratched at the rock. Gods lifted up the rock. This is to explain thunder and lightning.
Our Celebration of Learning will be first thing on Friday morning in Temescal Creek. The third grade writers will be sharing their newly published expository essays in small groups. Then we will be celebrating the holidays and the impending winter break with a sing-a-long. Kate Klaire and Owen Roberts are rumored to be accompanying us and the grand finale is a special New Year’s song the Temescalians have been working on in music. We will be capping things off with a festive potluck. If you would like to share a traditional holiday dish, or contribute fruit, juice, cups, plates, napkins, utensils, or coffee with all the fixins’ please let us know.
Here is the signup for the potluck. (It is a wiki you can also navigate to using the tabs on the top of this page.)
We are also saying goodbye to a friend on Friday who is moving to Australia over the Winter Break.
One housekeeping note:
Thank you so much for coming in to help wash cups/bowls, tidying up the kitchen area, and taking laundry home. We have noticed that we are missing all but 2 washcloths that we use to wipe tables. We had an array of navy, teal, yellow, gray, and multi-color ones but they are all gone. If you notice a plethora of washcloths show up in your laundry, would you kindly return them to our class? Thanks!
