November is Native American Heritage Month! So this week at BASE, we focused on the history, lives, and culture of the Native Americans. Our third graders have already learned so many new things about Native Americans during the regular school day, making this week's theme at BASE a great connection to the learning that takes place in their classrooms at school.
To kick off the week, Ms. Bailey introduced the students to a variety of Native American symbols...some of which they already learned about! We talked about how a symbol represents something and also the importance of symbols. We also looked at some well known symbols we see today in our everyday lives. Using the Native American symbols (and symbols of our own), we created secret codes/messages to each other and had to decipher them using a key. It was a great way to understand how Native Americans communicated using symbols.
Later in the week, Ms. Kim brought some science into the classroom with a fossil experiment. As a class, we learned about the importance of fossils and how exactly they are formed over time. For example, we learned that when an animal living in the oceans dies, their remains fall to the ocean floor and can eventually become fossilized. The body decomposes, leaving only the bones, and over time, layers and layers of sediment bury those bones. Eventually, the bones decompose also and the pressure from over the years causes an imprint to form in the rock/sediment...creating a fossil! We replicated this process with a science experiment using bread to represent the layers of sediment and gummy creatures to represent dead organisms. We added pressure by placing books on top of our experiments and made predictions as to what is going to happen over the next couple of days. We hope to be able to "dig" into our sediment to find fossils of our creatures!
Throughout the remainder of the week, we participated in our weekly clubs creating exciting projects such as 3D snowflakes! We also remained active during gym time playing Hungry Hungry Hippo, relay races, and some team building activities. Be sure to check out all of the fun taking place in the third grade classroom below!
To kick off the week, Ms. Bailey introduced the students to a variety of Native American symbols...some of which they already learned about! We talked about how a symbol represents something and also the importance of symbols. We also looked at some well known symbols we see today in our everyday lives. Using the Native American symbols (and symbols of our own), we created secret codes/messages to each other and had to decipher them using a key. It was a great way to understand how Native Americans communicated using symbols.
Later in the week, Ms. Kim brought some science into the classroom with a fossil experiment. As a class, we learned about the importance of fossils and how exactly they are formed over time. For example, we learned that when an animal living in the oceans dies, their remains fall to the ocean floor and can eventually become fossilized. The body decomposes, leaving only the bones, and over time, layers and layers of sediment bury those bones. Eventually, the bones decompose also and the pressure from over the years causes an imprint to form in the rock/sediment...creating a fossil! We replicated this process with a science experiment using bread to represent the layers of sediment and gummy creatures to represent dead organisms. We added pressure by placing books on top of our experiments and made predictions as to what is going to happen over the next couple of days. We hope to be able to "dig" into our sediment to find fossils of our creatures!
Throughout the remainder of the week, we participated in our weekly clubs creating exciting projects such as 3D snowflakes! We also remained active during gym time playing Hungry Hungry Hippo, relay races, and some team building activities. Be sure to check out all of the fun taking place in the third grade classroom below!