Good-Bye Discoverers!

For our last moment together, The Discoverers banded together to take all the air out of our classroom pool. Yes, you read that correctly. The students were surprised on the last day to find a huge pool in the middle of the classroom. We spent the morning working on portfolios, reading in the pool, and playing games together one more time. Thank you to all the parents for your help in the many events in our classroom. We can not do it without your support. Thank you Discoverers for the journey we went on together this year. Love Ms. Musters

Celeste, Allison, Ms. Musters

Kamden, Grant, Grant, Hayden

Carlos, Carly, Colton, Elizabeth

Joshua, Philip, Rachel, Davil

Jackie, Marcello, Tristan, Keily

Colleen, Sam, Kelsey, Rory

Memory Boards

As our year in third grade came to an end, The Discoverers continued to work on creating memories for their friends. Every day we would try to write at least one memory card to someone in our classroom. The memory boards were so impressive that they inspired other classes to do the project also. The boards were also used during the spring reading at Rice University and created quite a stir among the audience. Everyone was talking about the artistic talent as well as the writing talent!!
Here are some memories that we wrote about:
*I remember when you taught us about Martin Luther King, Jr. You showed us the I have a Dream Speech.
*Do you remember the time when we went on a field trip to the space museum. I learned a lot of things. I learned stuff that I never knew about. It was the funnest field trip ever!
*These last few months of heaven, I have had the best of times. The best thing you have done for us was pumpkin math.
*Remember the time we did found poetry? It was so hard because I was rushing on the oil pastels.
*Do you remember when we did the money museum and we got to tour children or parents around the room?
*Remember when we made speeches. We had to pick a human rights activist an do a presentation. We wrote our own speech. There were people I never knew of.
*Remember when we did dream houses? We had to use cylinders, rectangles, squares and domes. We had to arrange our pieces to look like a dream house.
*The time we did our speeches I was very nervous because I don't do speeches that much.
*Do you remember when we did Pumpkin math? I have to thank you for that opportunity. We got to do math the fun way when you did that.
*Remember when the Discoverers made "this is me" portraits? We used mirrors and oil pastels to make them. Right now they are hanging on the window.
*I like how you have so many stories to tell all the time. My favorite was Tinfoil Tag.

Class Party/Talent Show

The Discoverers decided that the class party should also include a talent show. Each student came up with their own plan and practice before the big day. I was pleasantly surprised by the talent!!! We had violin players, The Beatles, dancing, strobe lights, a plane exhibition, original songs, and overall great fun!!

Totem Pole Part II

After deciding and creating the animals for the totem pole, The Discoverers had to decide which order they would appear on the pole. As a community we decided on the following:
The koala bear which represents caring because we have to care for each other first.
Next is the wise owl who represents all the knowledge we have gained.
The dolphin represents cooperation, without it we can not get anything done.
The tiger is a risk-taker, he represents the fact that we always try something new.
The peace dove is at the top because we are always friends and therefore we will be always making peace with each other.

Totem Poles

The Discoverers learned that Native American communities had different ways to keeping the stories of their culture alive. It depended on the resources where they lived. The Native Americans of the Southwest used clay to create Storytellers, but the Native Americans of the Pacific West used trees to create totem poles. After researching the story behind the totem poles, The Discoverers met in their tents to create an animal that would represent us and tell our story.

Storytellers Part II

Here are some of the finished storytellers made by The Discoverers!

Storytelling Dolls

The Discoverers are learning that each culture had a way of telling stories and teaching their families about traditions. Today we learned about Helen Cordero and the Storytellers. Each student was given a lump of modeling magic and turned it into an animal or a person who would tell a story. We learned from our research that most of the Native American stories included a lesson to be learned.

Some lessons included: Never disobey your mother
Never brag
People should cooperate
Always tell the truth
Never give up
The most important thing is to never run away

Tent Community

The Discoverers are hard at work in their new environment. As part of our planner, we gained an understanding how a community is formed and how they thrive and continue to grow. We continued with our regular daily schedule in our tents!

Tents in the classroom???

Here we are getting ready to transform our classroom into a new community of tents. This was a great exercise to show that a community needs to work together to accomplish things. Colton's mom and Grant's mom worked hard!!! We finally figured out Kelsey's tent and then realize the poles were on the wrong sides. But in the end, our classroom was filled with tents! So excited to start our new planner in this environment.

Adwards Day

The Discoverers were very excited on Adwards day. I don't know if it was because of the announcement of the Twainberry winners or the fact that we were trying to put up tents in our room! Everyone did a great job and got to shake Mr. Baker's hand. Way to go you guys!!