Discovering the Power of the People

Dear Third Grade Families,

This week marked the beginning of a new unit on persuasive writing! Before students start writing their own opinion pieces, they are working as a group to craft a persuasive and convincing speech about why Choice Time should be incorporated into the third grade schedule. Once complete, this speech will be presented to Shelley for her consideration. Students worked in partnerships to brainstorm reasons to support the thesis statement. While the majority of third graders are in favor of Choice Time, there are a few who chose to support the counter argument. After students shared their ideas, we worked together to categorize them in the themes. Some of the themes included the following:

• Choice Time is important because it helps relax your mind
• Choice Time gives you a chance to make friends and be social
• Choice Time can teach you how to work together and resolve conflicts
• Choice Time can get kids excited about the day

In Social Studies this week, we traveled back again to the early 1600s, after Henry Hudson “discovered” the island of Mannahatta, to the beginning years of New Amsterdam. The settlement of New Amsterdam was established initially by the Dutch West India Company in 1624. The company sponsored thirty families from Holland to leave their homes and move to the New World. To start, students examined and compared two maps; one of New Amsterdam and one of present-day, Lower Manhattan. Students noticed that many of the street names that exist today originated in New Amsterdam, such as Spring Street and Wall Street. The following day, third graders worked in groups to learn about four of the director generals of the Dutch settlement: Peter Minuit, Wouter van Twiller, Willem Kieft, and Peter Stuyvesant.

Topics to talk about with your student:

• What qualities make good leader?
• If you were the director general of New Amsterdam, what would you do?
• Have your student write their own addition or subtraction story problems.

Dates to know:

Wednesday, January 24 — 3rd Grade trip to the Wyckoff House

Enjoy your weekend!

Hilary and Alisa

Hebrew with Ilana

This week the third grade completed their reading assignment. They recorded the story of Dag Leshabbat and emailed it to me, and they had a quiz on the vocabulary. In addition, we started to work on a new song called Reaamim Uvrakim – Thunder and Lightning. We practiced our Hebrew conversations about the the song and about winter in general. 

Judaic Studies with Aliza

This week in Chumash, students put themselves into the shoes of Avraham and Sarah once again to examine how they felt when Hashem promised them a child. We also thought about how their names were changed to suit their upcoming roles as Patriarch and Matriarch of a budding nation. Third graders wrote journal entries on behalf of Avraham and Sarah. We also started learning about Brachot, the blessings we say on food, in preparation for Tu B’Shvat and a class game we will play centered on Brachot. We talked about our first Jewish Hero of the Week, the financier and hidden Jew Dona Gracia Nasi. Shabbat Shalom!