For our final week of third grade Edible Social Studies, students recreated the iconic rainbow flag, which Gilbert Baker first created in San Francisco, as an iconic dessert, the parfait. Each home kit included red pomegranate seeds (representing life), orange mangoes (representing healing), yellow persimmons (representing sun), green kiwi compote (representing nature), blueberries (representing harmony), violet blackberry compote (representing spirit), brown chocolate chips and Black Mission figs to highlight the specific experiences of LGBTQ+ communities of color and one of the inclusive pride flags that debuted in 2018, and vanilla yogurt.
Before class in their homeroom, students watched a video, The Gay Betsy Ross, that includes footage of Gilbert Baker talking about what was happening in San Francisco in the 1970s and telling the story of how the flag came to be. In our live Zoom, we discussed the unique role our school’s namesake, Harvey Milk, and our school’s neighborhood, the Castro, played and continue to play in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Not every elementary school has rainbow stairs leading up to the library and students who walk across rainbow crosswalks on their way to school each day!
In our breakout rooms, while enjoying the parfaits together, the third graders each shared something that makes them proud. The responses ranged from “I’m proud I made this parfait!” to “I’m proud when I work on something really hard all by myself.” I’m really going to miss these incredible young learners, but look forward to working with them again next year.
My deepest gratitude to our third grade classroom teachers Mr. Swick and Ms. Grace, who always go above and beyond, and to all the adults in our school community who helped deliver kits to other families, picked up kits at school every week, and who are supporting student distance learning every day in a myriad of ways.
