California Relief Map : 4th Grade

Each student was asked to make a California Relief Map, using dough, salt, and water. At school, first she made an outline of California on paper. Using this outline, she formed the relief map out of dough. Once the dough hardened she painted the relief map. The map was mounted on cardboard.

The following recipe was used to make the salt dough:

• Mix together 4 cups of flour and 2 cups of salt.
• Slowly pour in 1 ½ to 2 cups of water. (Add water only as needed.)
• Knead well.

Map includes the following:

• The San Joaquin River
• The Sacramento River
• The Sierra Nevada Coastal Range
• The Coast Mountain Range
• The four main regions (desert, Central Valley, mountain ranges, coast)

Field Trip : Fourth Grade

This year Hrishika's class went on a field trip to Sacramento. This was an all day (7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M) field trip and covered some of the important spots in California history. It is an important field trip for 4th graders since it covers lot of what they have learnt in social studies this year.

This field trip was different in the sense, that the kids got to ride a luxury bus instead of a school bus. They were allowed to eat food on the bus and watch DVDs. So the kids were super excited. Here are some of the sites they visited and the pictures taken. Click on the links (links appear in orange) or the picture to find out more about the places visited.

• Eagle Theater
  
  



• Sutter's Fort
  
  



• State Capitol Building
  
  



• Wells Fargo Museum
  
  Here's a link to read more about the Wells Fargo's history
  
  



• Railroad Museum
  
  Here's another link to read more about Railroad Museum History.
  
  

Here's slide show of all the pictures from the Sacramento Field Trip.

Stock Market Game

Hrishika's school offered the Stock Market Game (SMG) as an after school activity. So we signed her up for the class. The class would meet every other week for an hour. This was a great way to teach kids about the stock market in general and in the bigger picture also teaches them how to manage money. The details about this game can be found at the SMG's official website.

Each team is given a virtual amount of $100000. They have to use up but not exceed that amount and the other rule is they need to buy a minimum of 100 stocks of any given company. These are some of the stocks she and her friends decided on buying with their virtual $100000. Apple, Sketchers, Yum, Scholastic, FedEx and a few others.

Hrishika's team placed second in the entire western region. So her team was awarded a medal and a certificate of recognition. Hrishika was totally thrilled with her medal. She was sporting it all day(I don't blame her). I too was proud of her performance.

Rain, Oh, Rain

It has been raining here all week long. Hrishika's class was asked to write about Rain. This is what she wrote. Her teacher thought Hrishika did the best job of writing and asked her to share it with the whole class by reading it for them. All I can say is, that makes me proud!!!

Rain, Oh, Rain

I woke to the sound of rain tapping on my window, like knocking on the door. As I stretched, I saw the trees sway in the breeze, and I started getting ready for school. At school, the Pitter - Patter of the rain overwhelmed me. I watched as the rain fell to the ground, and then crawled in all directions. it looked as if it was Spaghetti, and a large fork was spinning it around. The rain was dancing to the song of the wind. About five minutes before recess the speaker turned on, and the principals voice bellowed, " Rainy Day Recess." Oh no. Not rainy day recess once again. It was rainy day recess for two days in a row already. During recess, I looked out the window and watched the rain drop down on the floor. Suddenly, a long sharp piece of lightning dashed to the floor. Followed by that was a loud thunder, growling at me. As the thunder echoed, I thought, what a storm.

Reverse Glass Picture Frame

Hrishika's friend Chandana gifted a reverse glass picture frame to Hrishika on her 7th birthday. She finally got to work on this picture frame. I got these Fevicryl glass paints from India.

Hrishika learnt that you start glass painting by outlining the design with a black out liner. Here is the picture frame with the outline done.

Once the outline dried, she painted the blue and green glass colors. Here is the finished product.

Speech : 4th Grade

This year's topic for the fourth grade speech contest is "Peace - What It Means to Me". The student speeches are supposed to characterize what peace means to them in either a global, local, family or personal context and describe why peace is essential in the world or community they live in. The speech limit is 300 words.

Hrishika chose to write about inner peace. She wrote the speech all by herself without any help. I was completely in awe when I saw the content of her speech. Considering that she is only 9 years old it had quite a deep meaning. I was speechless (pun intended). The following is what she came up with for her peace speech.

PEACE

Have you ever wished you were always happy, never sad, angry or afraid? Well if you have, peace is the key for you. If you tell me the words inner peace, there are three main things I’ll think about. One is how it feels to be in peace. Another is yoga and meditation. The third is how inner peace is a treasure.

There are many different feelings going on in a moment in peace. When you’re in peace, your mind is clear and all your troubles vanish. You feel free to be yourself, and happiness flows through your whole body. When your mind is clear and relaxed, you earn peace, and the power of being happy and calm. Being in peace is like a bird, flying free, after being stuck in a cage for a long time.

Yoga and meditation are two ways to bring peace to your mind and body. Meditation is a way to be peaceful. It helps you be calm, and sets your mind in the state of peace. Once you do meditation, you can really focus and think about the things that matter to you. Yoga brings relaxation to your body. It helps eliminate stress. It also helps you to think clearly.

What’s truly a treasure to you? To me inner peace is an important treasure. Inner peace not only brings happiness but adds relaxation and harmony to our lives. Inner peace can’t be given to you, but you can earn it if you try from all your heart. With inner peace, your worries are behind you, and wonderful things are the only things you think about.

As I told you, the three things important to me about peace are, how it feels to be in peace, how yoga and meditation help achieve peace, and lastly, how inner peace is a treasure. Peace is important to this world since peace brings a sense of joy and harmony, which makes this world a better place to live in.

Canvas Tote Bag

Hrishika's friend celebrated her 9th birthday at Michael's Craft store. So they got to decorate a blank canvas tote bag.

Hrishika decorated hers beautifully. First she started with an orange border on the top edge. Next she ironed on some applique flowers, dragonfly and a butterfly. She used 3D outliner to outline the dragonfly. She glued on some stones and stars randomly. She also did some stenciling using lavender and purple. Finally she wrote her initials using permanent markers.

More Bracelets ...

Hrishika made a new bracelet. She made up her own design. She used her current favourite color, teal and silver beads.

Gift Card Collection

Hrishika has been collecting gift cards for a while now, may be the past 4 to 5 years. She has this huge collection of gift cards. Every time she goes to any store she is on look out for new cards. She got the most from Target store. Target has some really good designs.

She arranged some of her gift cards in a circle and took some pictures. She had many left over.

Here are some of her favorites which got a close up.

Her gift card collection is forever growing.

Beauty Is ....

Beauty is fireflies, dancing in the night, their tails glowing

Beauty is the Sun, when it sets behind tall hills

Beauty is a waterfall, when it falls from high, to down below

And beauty is the world, when it's filled with happiness

Because beauty is everything that's loved by you.

a poem by Hrishika Basava

A Visit to Color Me Mine

Hrishika had a day off on October 15th.  So one of Hrishika's friend's mom offered to take Hrishika to "Color Me Mine" along with her kids.  I love that place.  It's such a creative outlet for kids.  Hrishika chose a tile with a Hummingbird carved out.  We just got the finished product a few days later and here it is ....

I think she did a beautiful job painting the ceramic tile.  It looks awesome!!!

By the way the color she chose for the hummingbird happens to be her favorite color, Teal.  It matches this blog's  background color.  That's the reason I designed her blog in Teal and Orange.

Build-A-Bear : Bunny

Hrishika got to go to build-a-bear again. This time it was for Angela's 10th birthday party.

This time she decided to build a bunny and named it "Sea Shore".

This is the outfit she picked for the bunny. White pants with green top. Her friend Jena gave her these pink slippers, since she had two pairs.



Here you can see the bunny all dressed up.



With an Hawaiian lei matching the bunny's dress.

GIFTed Program

In third grade before the school year ended Hrishika got tested for GATE ( Gifted and Talented Education ). Some of the teachers told us that the test has gotten lot harder. Also because of the budget cuts in the state of CA, they said the number of kids and the frequency of the classes will also be reduced.

All that said, she got into the GIFTed program and I'm very proud of her. She did it all by herself. She did not receive any extra coaching, nor did I spend any extra time with her on that. Bravo!!!

On September 15th this year she had her first GATE class. She said it was lot of fun. As part of the GATE class they got to make bandana. As soon as she got home from school that day, she wanted to rinse the bandana and keep it for drying. By the time we got to it it was the day after. After that she had to wait for it to dry. She was so excited with the outcome. I think it looks good.

Weaving With Wool

Hrishika got some left over wool from her grandma. This is what she made. She taped the both ends of the wool. She then actually weaved another strand of wool through these taped woolen strands.

Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History - Gemstones

Last summer we visited Washington D.C. along with our sister's family and my mom. Wahington d.c. has such amazing museums to visit and they are all free. We could only cover National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History.

Hrishika loved visiting both the museums. She especially enjoyed the gemstone collection in the National Museum of Natural History. She took a lot of pictures of those gemstones. You could take a look at those pictures here ....

Life

Life is like a treasure, Also like a chance.
Use it very wisely, Do the best you can.
Think and learn, grow and achieve.
Because you won't be able to do it forever.
Do all you can today, not tomorrow.
Use your time wisely, And you'll be happy believe me.

a poem by Hrishika Basava

Nature

You hear the rippling of water, so smoothly it flows.
The beat of a butterflie's wings, swish, swish, swish.
You find the beauty of nature,
those beautiful sounds you nicely hear.
But when you go to the city,
where you can only hear the crowd,
You'll miss the sound of nature, and
you'll wish you are home again.

a poem by Hrishika Basava

Reading is Cool : 3rd Grade

This year again Hrishika's class participated in "Reading is cool" program sponsored by San Jose Sharks. This year she was top reader for the month of November 2008. She missed the top reader of the year award by just 2 books.

A Bird's Nest

A mother bird warms her eggs.
After a lot of hard work, Crccrackk!
A tiny bird is born, tweet, tweet.
Even though it might be tiny,
It can make a big change,
If it tries it's best with it's heart.

a poem by Hrishika Basava

Build-A-Bear : Puppy

Hrishika's friend Jena celebrated her 9th birthday at Build-a-Bear. This was Hrishika's first time at Build-a-Bear. So she was excited. Hrishika decided to build a puppy and named her "Cinnamon".

She chose a denim skirt and a lavender top for it's outfit. She also picked out a pink purse for an accessory.



Here you can see the puppy with it's outfit. It was super cute!!



Here you can see one of Hrishika's teddy bear sporting the puppy's outfit.

Solar System

As part of the science adventures class Hrishika got to make the models of the different planets of the Solar System. They used quick drying clay to make these models. For the colors they used ink from the markers.

They did it in two classes:

Outer Solar System:

In one class they got to work on the outer solar system which included Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Kuiper belt.

Inner Solar System:

In another class the made the inner solar system consisting of the Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the Sun.

Heritage Quilt

Hrishika had to do this project for her class. Each child was asked to make one quilt square that represented their heritage. Hrishika decided to do a peacock for her quilt, since it was the national bird of India and very colourful. Each child was given a 6"x6" square black felt piece to do the quilt.

This is what she did. She first drew the outline of the peacock using a white crayon. Next she cutout the shape of each feather using a brown card stock. Next she glued a circular silver bindi on each of the feathers followed by a blue colored gem on every single feather. This took most of her time. Next she stuck some of these feathers on a silver twist tie and glued them in place on the felt square. Then she made the peacock body, face and feet with white model magic and colored it with green, peacock blue and brown respectively. Lastly she glued all the body parts on the felt.

It looked amazing!

Science Project: 3rd Grade

For this year's science project Hrishika decided to work on the "Phases of the Moon". She tried explaning as to what causes the phases of the Moon. She made the model of the Moon using styrofoam ball and model magic. She glued it to the top of a CD holder. It looked great. She used globe for an earth and a flashlight for the Sun.




Pictures showing the "Full Moon Phase" with and without light in the room.

Notebook Cover: Hrishika's Style!

Front Cover

Back Cover

Here Hrishika took an ordinary mini notebook and gave it her own style. Basically she made a book cover using a sea green foam sheet. She cut out her name out of a brown foam sheet and glued it to the front cover. Finally she put a small brown bow on top. How pretty. I especially liked the way she cut out her name out of foam. Pretty good job.

Me Collage

At the beginning of the school year each student was asked to make a Me Collage. These were the instructions. Make a collage that is "all about YOU". First think about what makes you unique. Then start gathering materials to create your own "Me Collage". Draw, cut out pictures, or glue things to your collage that tell us what makes you You.

This is what Hrishika came up with ....

She had the following pictures:

• Harshul : whom she absolutely adores.
  
• Grandparents : whom she loves dearly.


• Michael Phelps : All time olympic record holder with 8 golds.


• Tom Brady : QB of her favourite football team.
  
• Backpack : Since she was so excited to go back to school after summer vacation.
  
• Chocolate : Need I say more.


• Chocolate Ice cream : Her favourite flavour.
  
• Board Games : Her favourite pass time.
  
• Star Wars : Her favourite movie series.


• Hawaii : Favourite place to visit.
  
• Gift Card : She loves collecting unique gift cards.

Lemonade!

Hrishika surprised me with this lemonade today.

Look at the presentation. WOW!! She used a lemon wedge and a mint leaf. I think it looks awesome. I guess the effects of food network are rubbing off on her. It was yummy too!!

Way to go Hrishika!!!!

Flowers made with Model Magic

Hrishika made these beautiful flowers using model magic. Her friend Jena gave her the model magic variety pack with a princess mold. Since Hrishika was no longer into princesses she decided to make these flowers instead. She learnt to make the blue flower from her Sharada peddamma. I was totally impressed with the flowers. They are beautiful.