November 20th – 22nd

Advisory

For the past two weeks, 7th grade girls and boys have had separate advisories. With Yehuda, the 7th grade girls read and discussed an interesting op-ed from the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/opinion/im-10-and-i-want-girls-to-raise-their-hands.html  With Allison and Jessica, the boys looked at a different article from the Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/kids-would-you-please-start-fighting.html which they really disagreed with. We will bring the whole group back together after Thanksgiving so students can share their thoughts and suggestions for how to improve our classroom conversations.

Judaic Studies

This week, students worked on projects to mark the completion of our first Bmidbar unit. The 7th graders made power point presentations, choosing themes for this unit and finding examples from the text that connected to the theme. Themes students came up with include:

• Freedom requires rules and organization.
• A strong community has a role for everyone, even people who don’t fit in.
• Being counted helps make people feel like they count.

When we return after Thanksgiving break, we will begin a unit on the history of the second Temple period. Our overall question will be “How did Judaism survive the destruction of the Beit haMikdash?” I’m looking forward to exploring this era with your children.

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family,

Jessica

Math

During this short week, 7X is a lesson away from completing unit four: algebraic manipulation and a test is coming up on Wednesday, November 29^th. 7Y started unit five: simple equations in one variable this week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Humanities

One skill we’ve been working on this week is reading fluency and oral reading skills. I’ve truly loved listening to the increasing story-telling skills of the 7th graders. They have infused nuance and fun into their reading of Beowulf: A New Telling. 7A finished the week by reading stories aloud with our 3rd grade buddies.

Happy Thanksgiving!