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Special Visitors and Finishing the Aleph-Bet

Israel: Visitors from Eight Grade

Second graders have been following the adventuresses of the eighth graders in Israel through their blog and pictures for the past two weeks. Now that the eight graders are backed, we invited a few to visit our class so that we could hear more in person and ask them our questions. They each told us about their individual trip highlights and something new that they learned in Israel.

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Hebrew: Learning our last letter of the Aleph Bet!

We learned Phey Sofit, our last script letter! Students were so excited to have finished the Aleph Bet, and are already excited to plan a celebration. Below is a video Adam reading his Phey Sofit page.

Adam Reads His Phey Sofit Page from Hannah Senesh on Vimeo.

Writing

This week we began our unit on fairy tales. We discussed what elements are in a fairy tale, and why authors of original fairy tales make certain choices. We read the more original Three Billy Goats Gruff and the classic Cinderella by Marcia. Then we read some adaptations of these kinds of books, and discussed why authors might choose to adapt fairy tales. One reason was that the author might want to change the character from a human to an animal or from a girl to a boy. Authors also infuse their adaptations with modern twists that can turn a story from a serious one to a funny one. After reading Prince Cinders by Babette Cole, a story about a prince who want to be big, strong, and hairy like his brothers and go to the palace disco. We studied Babette Cole’s adaptation and then began writing our own adaptation of Cinderella. We have some Star Wars Cinderella, some Plants vs Zombies Cinderella, and even some sport playing Cinderellas!

Ask your child what their adaptation is about.

Science

This week in science students demonstrated their knowledge about the five kinds of soil tests and observations of the three components of soil: sand, clay, and humus during each test. Then each pair of scientists conducted their own soil tests on a mystery mixture to see how the results were the same or different from what they had learned before in their experiments. Each pair had one mixture of either: sand, clay, and humus, humus and clay, or sand and clay.  They also had another look at their red worms before putting them all in the school’s compost bin in the garden. Goodbye worms!

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Social Studies

We were so excited to welcome a special guest, Lev’s dad Josh Rolnick, to class to share his experiences sailing the Caribbean. Josh brought in a map and showed the class different parts of the Caribbean that he sailed and visited, like Curacao and the British Virgin Island, and taught the class about how to sail, the parts of a boat, and the fish he and his family caught. He also showed the class pictures of the synagogue in Curacao where the floor is all sand! We learned so much through pictures and some fun videos, and enjoyed having a guest bring a piece of the Caribbean to us. Thank you Josh for the awesome visit!

Ask your child what their favorite picture or video was from Josh’s visit!

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Art with Iviva:

We are continuing to learn how to weave on cardboard looms. Iviva showed us images online of looms that have moving harnesses and complicated machinery. We also looked at images of tapestries with elaborate designs. Some of us finished our first, small woven fabrics, and we collaborated to begin weaving our own pictorial fabrics on a large, cardboard loom. We can’t wait to continue weaving next week.

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