3rd Grade 10/15

We have been busy here during the first two full weeks of school!

Reminder: Parent Event, Wednesday, 10/20 8:40-9:20 am at school. Full details went out by email.

Reach out to Shira if your child will NOT have a guest in attendance. sbecher@hannahsenesh.org

Reading with Shannon

In reading, we set up our classroom library to allow children to take home the book they are reading in school. Ask your child how they check out a book. We also started reading Stone Fox. It is about a 10 year old boy who lives on a potato farm with his grandfather. While reading, we stopped and did a comprehension check and asked who is in this part, what happened, and does this fit with what already happened or is it new.

Writing with Shannon

In writing we learned about using a storyteller voice in our writing. A storyteller uses dialogue, tells how people talk (ie.whisper or shout), uses descriptive words, and tells the story bit by bit. After looking through our writers notebook, we chose a seed story and began working on our first draft.

Social Studies with Shannon

In social studies we spent the first week looking at the Hudson River. When we started, we had a lot of questions! We wanted to know things like where it was, and how long it was.. We found out that the Hudson River is in New York State. It starts at Lake Tear of the Clouds and ends in New York Harbor. It is 315 miles long! We also learned that it starts as fresh water and drops altitude (height) so it is fast and has rapids. Then it become very wide (3 miles!) and slow towards the end. The following week we began by talking about culture, looking at what pictures can tell us about culture, and how some cultures have similarities and differences.

Math with Justin

Third Graders are finishing their exploration of place value and will soon begin units on addition and subtraction, including word problems and bar modeling. Last week students got their Chromebooks and started using Google Classroom, where all homework and weekly challenges will be posted. Thank you again for coming out to the math zoom last night. If you couldn’t make it, the recording is here. Unfortunately, it got started a little late, but all of the essential info is included in the Google Slides which you can see here. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy bar modeling!

Judaics with Shira

After the many holidays in the first few weeks of school, third graders have moved on to preparing for Torah study. We capped off our celebration of the last holiday, Simchat Torah, by looking at different types of torahs from various parts of the world, and decorating our class Aaron Kodesh, a special place to keep our class torah which we use during tfillah on Thursdays. Students have been exploring the question, “What makes a “real” torah?”

We watched this video about a soferet, a scribe, describing her methodical work, to learn more about this.

Students have been preparing for our famil,y learning event next week by learning a song connected to Lech Lecha, the parsha we will be studying in Chumash this year. Lastly, students have very much been enjoying the grape juice and challah that we can now enjoy again in school during Kabbalat Shabbat on Fridays!

Hebrew with Rimma

In our Hebrew class students talked  about their school life, about their classes and their daily activities.

We watched a short video clip where students could hear a range of native Hebrew kids at their age talking about their school life in Israel.

While watching the video clip, children spotted  and discussed similarities and differences. For example, kids in Israel study 6 days per week. Students shared with others which subject they like the most at school. Students applied a new structure אני הכי אוהב/ת that they studied couple classes before when we talked about Tamar and her friend (Chaverim BeIvrit)- We expanded it to their favourite foods and days of the week. 

Students finished the week with a fun activity by creating their ideal school schedule with their favorite activities and classes.

Reminder: The vocabulary quiz 2 is on October 21st. The list and the Quizlet for practicing words is posted on Google classroom.

Music with Heidi

In Music class, our Third Graders have been reviewing Music Class expectations through the words and movement of our Music Rules Rap and getting used to performing it with the steady beat of a metronome. In preparation for our ukulele study, students have been learning the different parts of the ukulele, the names of the strings and a little bit about tuning. Be sure to review, sign and return the ukulele agreement emailed to you and sent home with your child. Students will receive their school ukuleles on October 21st!

Science/STEAM with Sammi

Over the last two weeks, we have been getting to know our Chromebooks in both the science classes and the STEAM class. Students learned some vocabulary words to describe certain parts of their device such as the system tray, the shelf, and the waffle. If you’re not sure what those are, ask your student! We will continue to review this vocabulary so students can listen to instructions with ease that use these terms. They also learned the functions of certain special keys on the Chromebook keyboard.

We then navigated to Google Classroom and started to explore our ability to add classes, identify new and completed assignments, answer teacher posted questions, and take quizzes posted via google forms. 

We also started practicing typing this week! Students use a program called TypingClub that moves at their own pace. TypingClub teaches touch typing, which means typing without looking at the keyboard. To help with temptations, we spent a class period building keyboard covers. Many students already expressed a desire to practice typing at home. I would like to get them started in school first so I can watch their form. After some time getting started here, I will send an email home with instructions on how to make a keyboard cover and information about practicing at home. It is very important that students use a keyboard cover when practicing so they have consistency with that.