Fractions and Yom Ha’atzmaut

Yom Ha’atzmaut

Second graders celebrated with the rest of the school with many special activities. Our morning started with a school wide takes led by the fifth graders, followed by an Israeli snack.

Next, we turned our classrooms into the Dead Sea and Eilat! Students got creative, making the entrance to the Dead Sea into a cave and creating a salty Dead Sea.

Transforming the Hebrew room to Eilat! Exotic fish, hotels, and beach chairs!

 

We joined third grade in going to stations where we made salt scrubs at the Dead Sea, enjoyed artikim (popsicles) and learned about fish in Eilat, made candles in the artist colony inTzfat, and created flowers for the Bahai gardens of Haifa.

In the afternoon we learned a dance with Yuval!

 

and played Israeli Games with our sixth grade buddies!

Math

This week we began our new unit on fractions. We learned how to read fractions, for example using the word “quarter” when describing a fraction of fourths, a half, and a whole. We practiced writing the fractions and making sure the bottom number is the bigger number- or all of the pieces, and the top number is only a part of the fraction. In stations second graders played a fraction game, explored fraction pieces, and tried adding fractions. We have enjoyed this hands-on unit and relating what we have learned to our past units, for example 4 quarter make a whole, just like 4 quarters make a dollar.

Over the weekend, practice writing fractions and drawing fractions with your child. Then compare them using the <, >, or = symbols we learned at the beginning of the year!

Science

This week in science we reviewed the article on uses of soil they read and wrote about. Then students investigated the different effects of adding water to sand, humus, and clay. It was their first experience using test tubes.  They put a sample of each soil component in three different tubes, added water, and shook the tubes.  We observed and discussed how each soil sample settled, and drew how each looked.  After a few days of the test tubes settling, students drew the tubes again and we discussed the change over time, different rates of settling, and how what they observed in the tubes relates to soil and weather in the world.

Social Studies

In social studies this week we mixed some science in, by learning about the plant life and sea life in the Caribbean. We smelled oils of the Fragipani tree, cinnamon tree, and Jasmine tree. We read the book My Little Island by Frane Lessac, who describes his trip back to Montserrat where he lived as a child. Tropical fish, music, markets, and colorful fishing boats were all described as things the author missed. We crafted and painted our own fishing boats, and drew some of the fish we learned about. On our boats we included a flag from a Caribbean island we have learned about, we have a blast!

Ask your child how they decorated and made their fishing boats.

 

Art with Iviva:

After learning more about the indigo seeds we planted in science class a few weeks ago, a collaboration between art and science, students continued learning to weave on cardboard looms. Combining textures and stripes in different yarns, students are designing their own patterns, and can’t wait to take their fabrics home.