Week 17: Tuesday, January 2nd – Friday, January 5th
Hebrew: Dear parents, The month of January is designed as a month of individual study. the students receive assignments ahead of time and are supposed to use classwork to consult with me in order to complete the assignments successfully. The individual study is an important skill that will benefit them in high school. I wish you a warm weekend and a happy new year, Andreea Humanities: Literature and Writing: Happy New Year everyone! This week, we started our unit on William Shakespeare’s Othello by learning about critical lens and how they are used to analyze art. We learned about postcolonial theory... Read More
6th Grade News: 1/2 – 1/5/18
HUMANITIES After the long vacation, 6th graders were able to jump back into work in Humanities classes. Everyone had finished their ancient Egypt historical fiction novel over break – either Pharaoh’s Daughter or The Golden Goblet. We discussed how we felt about the books’ endings in our mini book clubs, and then continued examining the literary concept of plot pyramid. In History class, students read about a current event related to the Nile River in order to draw connections between ancient and modern times. They learned about how Ethiopia is currently building a large dam on the Nile River, and... Read More
January 2nd – January 5th
Judaic Studies The 7th graders began our second unit on the book of Bmidbar this week. Students translated the first 3 verses of chapter 11, developed kushiyot (text-based questions) about them, and looked at answers from mefarshim (commentators) including Abarbanel, Rashi, Sforno, and Ramban. Our goal for this unit is to practice developing and answer excellent kushiyot, and to explore how the mefarshim deal with difficulties in the text. We began by looking at the word כמתאוננים/ like complainers. Why are Bnai Yisrael described as “like” complainers? What are they complaining about? Why doesn’t the Torah tell us what they’re complaining... Read More
Welcome Back! Week of 1/2
Hello 5th Grade Families! We hope you had a wonderful break, and a safe and warm snow day! We’ve had a short and busy week; please enjoy the updates from 5th grade teachers below, and have a good weekend! HUMANITIES: The India Pavilion is almost here! We look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday, and we can’t wait to celebrate the students’ hard work with their families. We have spent much of this week making final preparations for the Pavilion, and have set expectations and schedules for the day itself. We also have taken some time to reflect on the past... Read More
A Snowy First Day Back – Happy New Year!
Dear Third Grade Families, Happy New Year! What a whirlwind of a first week back! We hope that everyone stayed safe during Thursday’s “Bomb Cyclone” winter storm. Over our few days back in school, we started a new math unit as well as a mini social studies unit on the Civil Rights movement. In math, we have moved onto word problems, for addition and subtraction. Word problems integrate literacy with math and are connections, for students, between school and the real world. To visualize the concepts in a word problem, students can use the bar model method as a strategy... Read More
Welcome 2018!
Community Building In Morning Meeting we began “share”, where a second grader gets chosen to bring in an item from home and share it with the group. We discussed using the 5 W question words “who, what, where, when, and why” to help guide our share and give us ideas about what information to share about the item. Second graders are practicing being respectful audience members and asking the sharer thoughtful questions. We are excited to learn more about each other and practice speaking and listening! Social Studies In preparation for the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. day, we... Read More
First Grade News: 1/2 – 1/5
We were happy to see everyone back after the break! This week we began learning about Dr. Martin Luther King. First graders shared what they already know about Dr. King and posed the questions they still have. We watched a brainpop video about his life and read “Martin’s Big Words” and “Young Martin’s Promise.” They learned about what segregation is and we discussion how Dr. King fought for what was right in a peaceful way. First graders will share some of the work they’ve done at our Martin Luther King Tekes next Friday, January 12th. This week, we... Read More
A Short, Snowy Week
Hello Fourth Grade Families! Welcome back from Winter Break! It was a surprisingly short welcome back week, and we hope everyone enjoyed their Snow Day. We have exciting times coming up for the fourth grade, including our Martin Luther King Jr. Day performance on January 12 and the conclusion of our first Parsha in Judaics. As it is extremely cold out, please remember to send hats, gloves, scarves, and many layers with your child to school. Thank you! Shabbat Shalom! -The Fourth Grade Team PEEK AT NEXT WEEK: Friday, January 12 – Delet P’Tucha, Open Door 8:15 am, MLK Day... Read More
Welcome back to Kindergarten!
Dear Kindergarten Families, We hope you had a wonderful and relaxing break! We wish you a happy and healthy New Year 2018! The children were excited to be back and had a wonderful short week in kindergarten! In Math, we started a new, 3rd, workbook. We are learning about various geometric shapes: flat and 3D (or solid). The children reviewed familiar shapes such as squares, triangles, rectangles, circles, ovals and hexagons. Then we introduced solid shapes through visual exploration, a scavenger hunt around the room and various books. These new shapes are a cone, pyramid, cube, cylinder, sphere,... Read More