Week 12: Living in Deserts

 Hello everyone, we will be starting a new story for the last quarter of Grade 3 called "Living in Deserts" which talks about life and landforms in deserts around the world.

We will be going back to our normal homework plan.

Also, good job to A2 for working hard for the midterm exams and learning well this semester.

It would be best for their learning to increase the number of sentences that they write per week to 15.

Let's hope to increase our knowledge and skills in the days and weeks to come.

Week 12 Vocabulary

1 peaches (n.) plural: a soft, sweet, round fruit with a large pit inside

 2 owner (n.): a person who possesses or has something 

 3 charcoal (n.): a black material made from burned wood, used for drawing or fuel 

 4 shadow (n.): a dark shape made when an object blocks light 

 5 maintain (v.): to keep something in good condition or working order

 6 dream (n./v.): images and thoughts experienced during sleep; to imagine while sleeping 

 7 asleep (adj.): sleeping; not awake

 8 braided (adj.): twisted together into a pattern with three or more strands 

 9 display (n./v.): something shown; to show something 

 10 agree (v.): to have the same opinion or to say “yes” 

 11 shield (n./v.): a protective object; to protect from harm 

 12 lack (v.): to not have something; to be without 

 13 exposure (n.): the state of being unprotected from something harmful 

 14 nomadic (adj.): moving from place to place; not settled 

 15 landscape (n.): the visible features of an area of land 

 16 graze (v.): (of animals) to eat grass, or to cause animals to feed on grass 

 17 protect (v.): to keep safe from harm 

 18 condition (n.): the state or situation of something 

 19 heatstroke (n.): a serious illness caused by overheating 

 20 dehydration (n.): a dangerous loss of water from the body 

 21 flash flood (n.): a sudden, heavy flood after heavy rain 

 22 extreme (adj.): very intense, severe, or unusual 

 23 Fahrenheit (n. proper): a temperature scale where water freezes at 32° 

 24 resource (n.): something that can be used, like water, money, or time

Living in Deserts-Story Summary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxDlziHeNdg&t=330s

There are many hot and cold deserts around the world.

A desert is an extreme place to live and it gets fewer than 10 inches or 25 centimeters of rain per year.

The soil (or ice) is dry, and a single rainfall could cause a flash flood.

Deserts are almost everywhere in the world.

You can find deserts in South America, North America, Asia, Australia, Africa, and Antarctica.

Many deserts are hot because there are not enough clouds to shield the ground from the Sun's heat.

Death Valley, California is famous as the desert that people recorded a temperature of 132 degrees Fahrenheit or 56 degrees Celsius.

However, most of Antarctica is a cold desert.

Temperatures in Antarctica can be as low as -128 degrees Fahrenheit or -89 degrees Celsius.

Deserts can be filled with danger, but some people have survived in deserts for a long time.

For hundreds (or thousands) of years, people have found ways to protect themselves against the dangers of heatstroke and dehydration.

They build shelters for shade, and they travel during the cool night.

The nomadic people of East Asia's Gobi Desert move from place to place to find resources.

They live in yurts which the carry with them.

Some other nomadic people build homes with bricks or mud and straw.

The people of Coober Pedy, Australia, near the Great Victoria Desert, dig underground rooms to make their homes.

Long ago, the people who live in deserts had very traditional lifestyles.

However, modern technology have helped them live with air-conditioned buildings and water pumps.

This is what has happened in the Sonoran Desert in Phoenix, Arizona.

The San people of the Kalahari Desert in Africa know which plants store water.

They use long reeds to suck up water from the underground, and store it in ostrich eggshells.

Most people who live in deserts live near an oasis.

An oasis has enough water to grow crops, olive trees, and date trees.

Often, a desert can go on for hundreds of miles with no shade from plants.

It is a barren landscape that might have a dangerous dust storm strike.

Desert people often have loose-fitting clothing to protect themselves.

The Tuareg people have lived in the Sahara Desert in Africa for hundreds of years.

They have carried items for trade across the desert, like gold and spices, to get supplies.

People have also been using camels for hundreds of years to travel through the desert.

Camels can drink 25 gallons or 95 liters of water in minutes, and they don't need to drink again for days.

Camels were really important for desert transportation just one hundred years ago.

Some human activity, like cutting down trees and bringing in grazing animals, can make deserts bigger.

That is called desertification, but when the opposite happens, like people planting more trees and plants, it is called greenification.

Most kinds of plants cannot grow in weak soil.

Without plants to hold the soil in place, it can dry out and blow in heavy winds.

Some people find valuable resources in deserts like oil and precious metals like gold, but taking it can cause pollution which can spread to the rest of the world.

Conservation scientists, volunteers, rangers, and engineers are trying to plant healthy trees, crops, and are protecting parks.

Week 12	Homework 回家功課
Monday April 27th	1. Week 12 vocab #1-8 x3 + definitions x1 2. Write 5 sentences
Tuesday April 28st	1. Week 12 Vocabulary #9-16x3 + definitions x1 2. Write 5 sentences
Wednesday April 29th	1. Week 12 Vocabulary # 17-24 x3 + definitions x1 2. Shared Worksheet
Thursday April 30rd	1. A2 Level Worksheet
Friday May 1st	1. Week 13 Vocabulary #1-8 x 3 + definitions x1 2. Write 5 sentences