November 6 - Mr. Moreno's Third Grade

I was a little nervous about this, but I had to trust my kids and my ability to structure the lesson to avoid a huge mess. The kids would be making homemade dough for a science project. A project done for the very first time in MRE third grade history. “Can they handle this,” I thought. “What about clean up?” I envisioned my room being the battleground of an intense dough ball fight and immersed in a cloud of flour. We talk about taking risks in the classroom, and maybe this was it.

The kids had explored pictures of different landforms, had prior experience sculpting them with Play Doh and drawing them individually. They analyzed, compared and discussed the differences between them. In science, we discussed their theories about how each landform may have been formed. A great topic to topic connection….  They know matter is constantly changing: sometimes fast, sometimes gradual or slow.

So this was the culminating project. It could be a huge success or a complete disaster. I would categorize it as an elaborate activity in the Science 5E instructional model because students were applying and synthesizing prior knowledge and experiences related to landforms. Each table group created a “landform village,” (their own personal paradise) complete with hills, valleys, mountains, plateaus, canyons, plains, islands, rivers and some even discovered they could do waterfalls. Yes, it got a little messy. Yes, clean up was quite the chore, but it was worth it. The kids really shined. They sculpted and identified the landforms beautifully. They discussed, for example, how canyons and valleys formed. Some even used their knowledge of cardinal directions to place and locate their landforms. “That canyon is northeast of the valley!”

One student even called one of her landforms, “Hill Everest,” because she said over time Mount Everest weathered away and was the victim of many massive landslides. Not sure how realistic this is, but  I appreciate her imagination, while trying to connect her learning to other concepts.

A few carpet stains, specks of dough, and some powder did fill the room, but so did smiles, a collective vibe of pride and excitement and a sense of accomplishment among our kiddos. There’s no better feeling. It was a success!

Mr. Jeremy Moreno