Sharing Ohlone Projects, A Cloud in a Jar, Exploring the Exploratorium, and the Art Show!

Dear Families,
We had a full week of learning, celebrating sharing, and an excursion to the Exploratorium! We kicked off the week with a birthday celebration. It is always nice to see how we change over the years. Often Temescalians will note when the birthday person “looks like them now”. It is nice to hear appreciations for the birthday person, as well as learn about them as a younger person in terms of favorites and firsts.

In Math, we continued working with 3-digit addition and subtraction. We remind the Temescalians that we are introducing many different strategies so that they can find a way that works for them and stick with it! We also explained that rounding and estimating helps them see if their actual calculation is plausible and makes sense. [A tip for rounding and estimating is that there is a 0 in the ones place.]

As we wrap up our study of the Ohlone people, we are presenting what we have learned about the Ohlone food, family roles, tools, transportation and trade, and shelters. The Temescalians have gleaned a lot of information from their non-fiction texts about the Ohlone people. Having gained knowledge about the Ohlone people and the natural resources available to them, we can revisit a throughline for 3rd grade: “How does where you live affect how you live?” Temescalians are recognizing that the natural resources, ecosystems, and climate all affect what grows and lives in an area.

For science, our unit of study is “Water and Climate” and we continued to think about how hot water and cold water have different densities. We showed the class the “cloud in a jar” experiment. They noticed that there was a “gray thing” inside the jar. They also noticed the motion that the gray thing had. Ask your Temescalian what s/he thinks is happening and see if they can guess what that gray thing is! Ask them how this shows us what’s happening all the time, in the atmosphere!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44GH2gs8avo

We enjoyed a fantastic field trip to the Exploratorium! The first portion of the trip was to learn about landforms by looking at the Aeolian Landscape, Settling Column, and Bay Sediment Cores. Groups then splintered off to explore the many exhibits and some even saw magic tricks being performed! Please ask your Temescalian questions about their visit. Perhaps you can revisit exhibits that especially piqued your Temescalian’s interest!

We had an opportunity to walk through the Art Show and have a quiet space to reflect on our own work and the work of others.

Finally, we had Family and Friends Reading on Friday. Thank you to the room coordinators for organizing a breakfast treat of bagels and coffee/tea! It made the time a bit more homey. In addition to my introductions, I especially enjoy teaching third grade because of the developmental stage they’re in. Third graders come in still full of wonder of the world, and are curious and ask questions. They are reading to learn and for enjoyment. We can have deeper conversations about issues that do not have a clear cut right or wrong, and third graders are beginning to lean into the discomfort of not having this distinction and decide what makes sense to them. They are still sweet and hugs still abound in third grade. Those things definitely fill my bucket! An upcoming project that I look forward to is the local plant and animal research writing piece. This project is a combination of research, note taking, synthesizing information, and writing it all up to create a book about a local plant or animal. The hope is that as they are becoming experts on their subject of study, that they will see how where this animal lives affects how it lives. This is a guiding question we ask in third grade. We also make the connection in this project to the science of ecosystems, food chains, and food webs. We see how everything is dependent on each other, and the impact one plant or animal has on everything else in the ecosystem. Look forward to this project soon after the February break!

Upcoming Events:
February
10-14: Friendship Week is coming up! We’ll talk more in depth with the kids about this, but it is a week where we emphasize acts of kindness and we assign secret buddies. Secret buddies are to be the recipient of acts of kindness, kind words, and notes of encouragement. We encourage third graders to see everyone as a friend and branch out from their usual friend groups.
13: 1,000s Projects are due in class with the write up on the back of the pink letter we sent home! (Here are some samples of the planning sheet, the letter we sent home explaining the 1,000s Projects, and the final write up.)

13: Cookie decorating for Secret Buddy. (More information about parent involvement to come either from me or the classroom coordinators, but we need volunteers to come in and help with cookie decoration!)
14: Family and Friends are invited to join a gallery walk of our joint 1,000s Projects of local ecosystems. We will check in to see if K-2 classes are also available to visit during that morning time.
14: Valentine’s Day. If your Temescalian would like to bring in Valentines, please bring in one for each student in the class. Store bought or homemade Valentines are welcome, but they should all be uniform, and there should not be any treats attached to them.
16-20: February Break!

March
5 & 6: Parent Teacher Conferences

We hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Warmly,
Lisa and Jackie

Birthday celebration!