A Prideful Publishing Party!

Dear Third Grade Families,

How wonderful it was to see so many of you at school today, both through the wonders of technology and in person! A round of applause to our Third Graders for presenting all of their hard work through their Judaic Studies, Hebrew and General Studies projects. We all were beaming as we returned to the classroom after the publishing party.

For the majority of this week, students were devoted to putting the finishing touches on our nonfiction pieces for the publishing party. As we worked with our Social Studies partners,we took all of our Lenape knowledge into creating detailed covers, informative glossaries, and engaging introductions. In addition, the third grade worked with teachers and each other to revise and edit the writing. Next week we will be starting a short study of explorers, which will turn into a focus on Henry Hudson. For this next part, the third grade will be asked to use all the gained knowledge about the Lenape to investigate and infer how life changed with the arrival of Europeans — specifically the Dutch.

This week in Math, we started our exploration of subtraction. We began by discussing the definition of subtraction and how it compares to addition. Children mentioned that subtraction is the process of taking away, and that it is the opposite of addition. We discussed how a subtraction equation can be written in different ways. For example,

324 – 123 = __ can be written 324 – __ = 123 and 123 + __ = 324. All three equations lead to the same answer, but are solved in different ways. This is also called a “fact family,” which is a term commonly used for our math fact equations from 0-20. Students also reviewed how to use stacking when solving  four-digit subtraction problems, expanding their knowledge from Second Grade. Next week, third graders will be using base-ten blocks to solve problems that require regrouping (ex: 125 – 118).

In other news, we started our first chapter book read aloud of the year! – Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate Dicamillo. Through this read aloud, students will practice different reading skills such as, character description, predicting, summarizing, visualizing, and inferencing. They will then be using these skills to support their comprehension during Book Clubs and Independent Reading.

To view a slideshow from the publishing party click here

Activities you can do with your student:

• Ask your child to describe the main character (India-Opal) in Because of Winn-Dixie. Encourage them to describe her internal traits.
• How and why were masks used in the Lenape Tribe
• How many things in New York State are named after Henry Hudson (make predictions! — we have not yet talked about this).

Dates to know:

• Hannukah Play: Monday, December 18
• School break: Thursday, December 22; Tuesday, January 2

One quick reminder — if you are sending emails to the teachers, please make sure to include Alisa. In case you do not have it, acohen@hannahsenesh.org is her school email address.

Shabbat Shalom to you all!

Best,

Hilary and Alisa

Judaic Studies with Aliza

Thank you parents for coming to the Lenape Fair today! In Chumash this week, third graders worked on their Avram and Sarai diaries, which you saw on display at the fair today. Next week we begin out Chanukah unit and move on to the next part of our Chumash parsha. Shabbat Shalom!