April 8, 2022 — Spring is Just Around the Corner
Humanities with Hilary Dear 4th Grade families, Our exploration of Westward Expansion has continued! We not only learned about the basics of the Oregon Trail (like that it started in Independence, Missouri and typically ended in the Washington/Oregon region), we also learned about what people encountered on the trail and the challenges they faced. Some encounters are landmarks, such as Chimney Rock, Fort Walla Walla, Independence Rock, Fort Laramie, and the Snake River. Students learned more about the parts of the wagon, as they created their own shoebox example. Click here to see our photo album from the day! (https://photos.app.goo.gl/BjL2EkAxrrJWgPZU6)... Read More
April 8: Spring Rolls In
Humanities In reading, we are moving onto a new class novel, Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman. I have taught Seedfolks for many years and love this book! It is a beautiful story about a diverse community who come together to build a garden in their worn-down neighborhood in Cleveland. As we read, we will focus on immigrant stories, lost languages, women in history, community leaders, and how each individual can make a difference. Your students will be tasked with charting each character’s background, motivation for helping the community, and the character’s struggle. They will also be given vocabulary assignments and quizzes. In... Read More
3rd Grade: 4/8
Is Spring here? The weather has been a little up and down lately, in true March fashion, but now that April has begun, hopefully there is only warm weather ahead! Our highlight these past two weeks was our trip to the Brooklyn Bridge. In school we learned all about the construction of the bridge, looking at old photographs and figuring out the order that the different parts were built. The story of the building of the bridge took one unexpected turn after another. First John Roebling dies from injuries sustained to his foot while scoping the land before the bridge... Read More
2nd Grade Blog: 4/8
During Writer’s Workshop the second grade authors have begun a fiction unit! We began by reading and immersing ourselves in series books. We dove into Henry and Mudge and as readers we first studied how Cynthia Rylant writes her series books. The students discovered that Cynthia starts writing each book with the main characters and settings, that she keeps the main characters throughout the series and that there is either a problem and solution or an event (similar to a small moment) in each one. Next we started with prewriting! The students began by brainstorming their main characters and created... Read More
First Grade News
Dear Families, This week in Math, students are practicing how to count big numbers quickly. We are using place value blocks (base ten blocks) to count by tens and add on ones. Soon, we will be adding these numbers together! Students are reporting they had a lot of fun playing our subtraction dinosaur games at home. Look out for more games next week! Our readers are going on adventures in fiction! Before we dive into a storybook, we remember to take a sneak peek by looking over the cover, title, table of contents, blurb, and inside of the book. We... Read More
Kindergarten Blog 4/8
Dear Kindergarten Families, Kindergarten is ready for Pesach! We have been learning holiday songs and the holiday story, and we even have our own classroom megillot. This week we had our Family Museum, in which we invited our fourth grade buddies and other friends of kindergarten to see the children’s hard work on their family collages, model magic sculptures, and decorated homes of their families for our family unit. The kindergarteners made cookies for the museum cafe, and tickets for entry for the invitees. At the end of the event, the kindergarteners performed the song “Love Makes a Family”.... Read More
April 8, 2022
HUMANITIES 7th graders has one week left to complete their class novels for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) project. With a healthy amount of debating, arguing, and compromising, each class’ novel is coming into form. The 7th grade is also in the midst of our Holocaust and Human Behavior unit. Students have read Anne Frank’s graphic biography, will start reading her diary next week, and have learned about the evolution of antisemitism, World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, and the struggles of the Weimar Republic. Today, the students listened to the story of Holocaust survivor Sami Steigman, and... Read More