Wrapping up 2022! | Temescal Creek

Hello Families,
We have had a busy few weeks between the Fall Break and now our Winter Break! We are well on our way of learning about multiplication and the third graders should start practicing to memorize their times tables! We also studied different parts of a plant. Finally, we welcomed families on campus for a Celebration of Learning/Potluck where we shared our Thankfulness Writing pieces.

Math
Multiplication can be practiced by playing games like Sparkle or Buzz!
Sparkle Rules (It is helpful to list out all of the multiples for the factors up until x10 with your Temescalian so they have a guide to help them keep track of which multiple they are on.)
Buzz Rules (This game would be helpful if you use hundred charts to color in the multiples for a specific factor so that you can easily keep track of the multiples.)
Perhaps you can use these games on longer car rides to keep up the multiplication practice going over the Winter Break!
Here, the kids are using number lines with missing numbers in either the factor or product spots to help kids think about multiplication and how they’re related to one another.

Science
To learn more about plants, we first talked about the uses of each part of the plant. We then did the tried and true celery in food coloring experiment. We observed over the course of two weeks to see what happened with the celery. We made sure to have a “control” jar of clear water so that we could compare between the celery. The hope was to see how the water level varied between the different food coloring, but seeing how some celery had leaves, and some didn’t, and a few jars of water spilled, this experiment wasn’t the most ideal, however, we were able to observe that (1) Food coloring was traveling through the celery to the tips of the leaves/stalk, (2) The celery in the food coloring didn’t do as well as the celery in the water, (3) The celery that was split between two jars of food coloring wilted the soonest. There were some interesting conclusions that the kids had from this experiment that may be corrected if you try this again at home! Some kids thought that the green food coloring was the best for the celery because the celery in the green food coloring did the best, even better than the celery in the control water.

Identifying and labeling the different parts of the plant

Celery in Food Coloring Day 1

Celery in Food Coloring Day 14

We used this celery experiment to also talk to the Temescalians about transpiration, and how it’s part of the water cycle too.

See if they can spot “transpiration” in the Water Cycle video from GoNoodle, from Blazer Fresh (You may want to create your own login. It’s a fun way to get energy out when we’re cooped up inside during rainy days or an option for kids during Choice Time on Fridays.)
https://app.gonoodle.com/activities/water-cycle?sp=search&sn=search&st=video%20versions&sid=466

Along with our study of the water cycle and weather, we also learned about snow and how it’s formed.
We read The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino with Jon Nelson, Ph.D.

We cut snowflakes in class and with Julianne, and Julianne was able to come into the classroom and help us make borax crystal snowflakes! We even used this experiment to put our ratio table models of multiplication to work!

We sent home the snowflakes in the borax solution because if you heat it up again, you should be able to use the solution again to use to encrust other things in borax crystals!

Celebrating a Temescalian’s birthday is always a joy!

We worked so hard to finish our Thankfulness Writing pieces, and all of the folder extras so that we could share them with families at our potluck on Friday, 12/16!

Steps for the Thankfulness Writing piece

Working on the folder extras

Getting in small groups to read it to each other, before we share them with grownups.

Sharing our reading in small groups before we share them with our grownups.

It was a pleasure to welcome families into the classroom to share our Thankfulness Writing, as well as celebrate the coming holidays together.
This is a video of some Temescalians explaining the steps for this writing piece.