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Preparing for Social Action Trip and Publishing Party

Community Building: Something nice you bring to the community is….”

Today at the end of Kabbalat Shabbat, we talked about how our community is made up of all different people. Some of us have sisters and others have brothers, some have blonde hair and others have brown, some are girls and others are boys, and so on… After, we went around the circle and each person told their neighbor something nice they bring to the community. The students really impressed us with their thoughtful comments.

Matan told Lev, “You bring friendship”.

Josef told Allie, “You bring kindness”.

Ask your child what they said, or what their neighbor said to them, or try this activity at your home in honor of Shabbat!

 

Yahadut: Preparing for Social Action Trip

Every year at Hannah Senesh, students participate in a yearly social action project. In K and first grades, they did gardening projects. Second graders are challenged to take their service beyond the school walls as we partner with the Cobble Hill Health Center, a community home, walking distance from school.

We introduced the project this week by talking about why we do Social Action, and by reading the book “Lazar the Good Deed Dog” about a dog who lives in a nursing home. In this book, both the residents and Lazar the dog benefit from their relationships. It is our hope that this partnership will be mutually beneficial for the residents of the Cobble Hill Health Center and our students as well.

We further prepared for the visit by role-playing potential conversations. We practiced how to initiate, maintain, and end a conversation with a new, elderly person. We worked on introducing ourselves, speaking loudly and clearly,  and saying phrases such as, “Nice to meet you.” The social skills we work on every day in Morning Meeting have already established a foundation of some of these social skills. Ask your child about some of the “dos” and “don’t”s for our visit to the center.

Lastly, we invited a few third students to our class to talk to us about their experiences there last year. We also watched some videos from student visits in the past few years, so that second graders will have an idea of what to expect. We are so excited for our visit on Monday!

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Chumash Videos: Reading the First Verses of the Torah- Chaos and First Two Days of Creation

We have studied the first eight verses of the Torah in Chumash class, describing the beginning of the creation story. Students are developing text skills in reading and identifying key words. Below are a few videos of students reading the text or reciting it by heart with illustrative hand motions.

Second Grade Chumash: Chanting First Two P’sukim of Breisheet by Heart, with Hand Motions from Hannah Senesh on Vimeo.

Second Grade Chumash: Reading First Day of Creation from Hannah Senesh on Vimeo.

Second Grade Chumash: Reading First Day of Creation in Pairs from Hannah Senesh on Vimeo.

Writing and Reading

In writing workshop we began learning about opinion writing. Reading books like “I Wanna Iguana” gave us ideas for how to write persuasively. Second grade writers chose a beloved book, did a quick reread, and created an award to nominate the book for. Awards like “Funniest Book for Kids” and “Most Adventurous Story” were created. However, it is not convincing enough to just decide on an award, you have to provide reasons as to why the book is a good book and deserves an award. Second graders learned to use quotation marks to use writing from their books as evidence for their reasons.

Ask your child which book they are writing about!

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Math

We are subtraction with regrouping masters! We have now practiced double regrouping, as well as deciding when a problem needs regrouping and when it does not. We read the book “Shark Swimathon”, a story about a swim team of sharks who need to complete a certain amount of laps in order to go to swim camp. Through subtracting the total number of laps and the amount they complete each day, we follow their journey towards their goal of swim camp. At each page there was a subtraction with regrouping problem for us to solve. We loved doing math with reading!

Over the weekend, ask your child to repeat the rhyme they learned to help figure out when a problem needs regrouping.

Science

The classroom scientists were hard at work again this week. After previously conducting an experiment with mixing three different solids and liquids, this week they separated the same mixtures with filters inside of funnels, and then placed the salt and water solution in a Petri dish.

Ask your child about how they separated gravel and water, toilet paper and water, and what happened to the salt and water over a few days.

The exploration of solids and liquids also included learning about the origin of Oobleck – they watched a reading of Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss – and then everyone excitedly made their own. It was fun to play with this magical combination of cornstarch and water that stayed solid as well as liquid. We added colors to make our Oobleck unique, and watched the marbling effect when drops of colors are added. We hope they also enjoyed it at home!

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Art with Iviva:

Last week, we used watercolor pencils to draw fall landscapes. This week, we worked with watercolor paints, continuing to dream up urban and rural landscapes. Some of us researched images online for ideas, and we all viewed works by painter, Ana Maria Velasco. We especially liked her waterfalls and rain forests.

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