Written by the 3rd and 4th Grade Girls

The 3rd and 4th grade did an informational report on animals, people, and places. Ms. Yee had them present the project in class. Many people did a report on animals. We all had to make dioramas with creative titles. They required a background, 2D and 3D figures and animals, and a summary of the scene that was created. The best part was the presentation, so we could see everyone’s work. We hope you enjoyed learning about everyone’s projects!

Celeste (3rd grade)

Are all flamingos pink? Where do the beautiful colors come from? Can they fly? Where do they live? What do their babies look like? Celeste did a presentation about flamingos. Let’s take a look at her diorama.

Celeste painted  flamingos on  paper, cut them out – resting, standing, flying, looking for food, swimming, and hatching. All 22 of them! Flamingos love socializing. Then she modeled flamingo statues from play-dough and air-dry clay and put them on the “mud”. She painted the background a lagoon. It’s not a pond with trees or bushes, which you usually see from the pictures taken in the zoo. Lagoons are flamingos’ habitats. She glued on a rock and painted it to make a small piece of land in the water, which is a perfect spot for flamingos. While appreciating the beautiful scene, she came out with her idea of the theme – Paradise of Blue and Pink. Celeste chose to put the theme in the lower part of the box which is part of the box’s lid. She designed and wrote these words together with her sister. She spent the whole hour cutting them out which is such a delicate work. This is a wonderful habitat for flamingos. But what if the water is polluted? What are threatening flamingos to survive?

Kelsey (3rd grade)

Kelsey was born in 2011 which was the year of bunny, that’s why Kelsey decided to use “Rabbits” as her title. Kelsey first worked on her research project which was her powerpoint, she enjoyed learning about rabbits while working on her powerpoint. There was a very interesting fact that she learned: Rabbits don’t vomit.

After Kelsey finished her powerpoint, she went on to her next step which is her diorama. Kelsey and her dad together worked on the diorama. It looked great after it was finished. She wrote an introduction for her diorama too. Below are some pictures of her diorama.

At last, she had a presentation in class with the 4th graders and the rest of her class which were the 3rd graders. She did a great job on it too.  

Kelsey has some thoughts to share with everyone. “I really enjoyed doing this project even though I spent a lot of time on all of this work. I still enjoyed and learned a lot by researching facts about rabbits on the internet. Also, I want to thank my dad because he helped me with this project. This is all about Kelsey’s work, thank you!

Sahara (3rd Grade) 

Sahara chose the ground squirrel because people do not normally choose the ground squirrel. We were able to find some interesting facts about the ground squirrel.

How do they develop their skills? They play, wrestle and jump onto branches. This helps to make their legs stronger. They learn to find water to drink by searching for puddles and creeks.They learn the best way to break open hard nuts by gnawing and turning the nut over and over. They learn to use their claws to climb trees.

What do they eat? Ground squirrels eat crickets and seeds that fall on the ground.They climb trees and eat the fungi and mushrooms that grow on the branches. Before ground squirrels hibernate they bury their nuts. When they wake up they eat the nuts.

Where do they live? Did you know that ground squirrels dig burrows and that they have many ways to get out in case an animal is chasing them. 

Sherry (3rd grade)

I learned that Narwhals have a lot of incredibly interesting facts. They live in the Arctic. They have a special skin that protects them from the cold. They are friendly and they do not attack each other with their long tusks. In the late sixties, narwhal tusks were sold as unicorn horns that can cure illnesses. Narwhals can not breath underwater so they need to go on the surface every 15 minutes. They can break through ice and they are smart too.

Yasoda  (3rd grade)

Hop hop hop! Rabbits hop all around rabbits have strong hind legs and big furry bodies. Rabbits come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors they can be white, black, and many more colors.

Aarya (4th grade)

Do you know if polar bears really have white fur? How do they hunt? Well, Aarya can answer these questions and tell you more about polar bears! Polar bears actually have clear fur. It is actually clear with a hollow tube that traps heat. The fur only looks white by the way it reflects light. Do you know what the  weight of a polar bear is? Male polar bears weigh about 900 to 1,600 pounds. A female polar bear weighs about 300 to 500 pounds and a baby polar bear weighs around 2 pounds at birth.

Aarya made a diorama of a polar bear habitat. She used a shoe box as a base for the diorama and made a sky. She glued cotton on the bottom of the shoe box as the snow. She also made a pond with 2 seals in it because well, a polar bear’s favorite food is seals! Last but not least, Aarya made the most important part of the diorama—the polar bears! She made them by taking an empty tissue roll and glued unrolled cotton balls around it. Then she used paper to make the head and paws. She made a mama polar bear and two baby polar bears.       

Shriya (4th grade) 

Do you know all of the planets in the solar system? Do you know the planet that we live on and how far it is away from the sun? I will tell you some facts about the planets. Mercury is the smallest planet. Venus is the hottest. Earth is our only home. Mars is the red planet. Jupiter is the biggest planet. Saturn is the only planet that has rings. Uranus tilts over and spins. Neptune is the coldest and last one.   

Sophia (4th grade)

Do you know who Julie Andrews is? Sophia chose Julie Andrews for her informational writing because she wanted hers to be different from other people’s informational writing. Julie has 3 daughters and 2 husbands. She acted in Mary Poppins, and played the role of Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She made the background of her diorama from a scene in The Sound of Music. 

Soraya (4th grade) 

Do you know what anime is? I’ll explain anime (ah-na-may) to you briefly. 

Tip 1:  The word anime means animation in Japanese.   
Tip 2:  Anime is a hand drawn or computer drawn art.
Tip 3: Anime characters all have something in common and that is having origins.

Anime is a very interesting art and it’s known as interesting, yet beautiful art. If I were an anime character I would have long hair with a dog with everything my heart desires. What about you?

Anime is exciting to me. Is it interesting to you? 

Xinwen  (4th grade)

Hello! Can you guess which animal I am?
I change my fur color by which season it is,
I am a Fox but not a red Fox,
Which animal am I?

An Arctic Fox!

Xinwen researched about Arctic Foxes. The diorama she made had a very creative name – “My Amazing Habitat.” On the back of her diorama was an introduction that she wrote, “Hello! Welcome to my habitat! It is already the end of winter. Another year is gone. As you can see, the snow is starting to melt. The place I’m standing in is my cave. It’s mostly made out of rocks. The blue part is the ocean. In the middle of the ocean is a piece of very slippery ice.” She used white tissue paper to make the background for the mountains, and painted some gray here and there so it would look like the snow was actually melting. She also used acrylic to paint the sun, sky and clouds. She made a very cute cave with rocks from her front yard and a sheet of paper coated in gray acrylic paint. She used cedar leaves to make the grass, foam peanuts, and cotton sheets to make the snow. 

In the end, we were able to complete a reflection for our project. Why did Ms. Yee make us do the project? She wanted us to practice our researching, presentation, creativity, and communication skills. Kelsey said, “What Ms. Yee did was a very good way to make her students happy while doing work.” We all enjoyed doing the project and learning from each other’s presentations. You can tell that everyone spent a lot of time and effort on their project. We all had fun researching the topics we were interested in.