6th Grade News: 2/25 – 3/8/19
HUMANITIES
Last week, 6th graders had the opportunity to bring their learning to life when we visited the Brooklyn Museum. We explored art and artifacts related to ancient Egypt, including a real mummy, classic amulets, the “Book of the Dead” (or a “cheat sheet”/guide to the afterlife), sculptures of pharaohs, and more. The students used their ancient Egypt expertise to inform their analysis of the items in the exhibit; it was wonderful to see them teaching and learning from each other.
–> Enjoy the photos from our field trip here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JcBaLuj7umX3Re166
Meanwhile, in ELA we are continuing to delve deep into our current class text, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. While we read, we are learning about the rich and sometimes troubling historical context of the novel. This week we examined sample discriminatory laws from the 1930s South– laws that reinforced racist attitudes by mandating segregation. Students then attempted to put themselves in the shoes of someone from the past who would have been impacted by these laws, and wrote creative letters to share their experiences. I hope that this exercise helped the students build empathy for victims of discrimination and baseless hatred, while also informing them about a darker side of our country’s history. I encourage you to discuss the novel and its historical context with your children at home; I know they have sophisticated insight to share!
Shabbat shalom,
Naomi
JUDAICS
*Please send your child in with little prizes they can donate for the Purim carnival!
In Judaics we have been watching a documentary called “Patterns of the Exodus” https://patternsofevidence.com/exodus-film/. Students reflected on the information presented in the discoveries talked about in the documentary and how they affected their personal beliefs about the Torah. I highly recommend asking your child about this experience. They wrote beautiful reflections on google classroom about how their opinions shifted or stayed the same and how their beliefs about the Torah being a historic account or not affected their connection to the text. We also saw the Elu VElu (Openness) style of this documentary and how multiple opinions were shared throughout even if they contradicted the theory being presented. It has been so fun to collaborate with Humanities and have the students see the Exodus event within greater Egyptian context. While at the Brooklyn Museum we even saw a document from Egypt written in Aramaic and they were able to read some of the words!
We are now back into the Shemot text in chapter 3. Moshe is hearing about his mission from G-d to take the Israelites out of Egypt. Students are working on context clues and translating individually. Next week we will be going into our Mishna study about women reading Megillah.
Please check out the Moshe and the Burning Bush art projects! https://photos.app.goo.gl/GKB9up9K6Jh2UVB47
Shabbat Shalom,
Laura
SCIENCE
Science has started our STEAM Disease Project. Students have been assigned groups and will be creating an informational game about a disease that affects one of the studied body systems. To introduce this project we modeled two different games that informed the players of the different parts of the immune system. They played immunity pac-man where pac-man and fruit were the immunity system cells and the ghost were the pathogens. Next we played immunity chess in order to discovery more complex players in the immunity system and different kinds of pathogens. In the coming weeks students will start researching about diseases and narrow down their choices for their information game. We cannot wait to see what game designs the students come up with.
Mike Noll and Samantha Butwin
MATH
The sixth grade is finishing up the chapter learning about equations and inequalities. They wrote inequalities to match real world word problems and then graphed their solution on a number line. Coming up next, we they will be learning about the coordinate plane. They will have fun creating their own shapes on the plane and connecting the points to create pictures. They will then find the distance between all the points. It will be so fun!
Katie
HEBREW
Dear parents,
These past weeks, we have been all involved in learning, with only one snow day disruption! Hebrew K has been reading, writing and discussing things that we like to do vs. things that we can or must do using the structure of VERB + INFINITIVE. Hebrew J has been reading, writing and discussing good deads and what it takes to be a good person. The students have been reviewing the past tense in the context of BYNIANIM- Structures, and are now moving on to learn more about the future tense in the same context.
I wish everyone a nice weekend and look forward to meeting you at parent-teacher conferences,
Andreea
HEBREW HERITAGE
As you may know, the annual 6th grade penny drive is coming up. The 6th grade every year puts so much effort into this penny drive. Sorting pennies, making videos, making posters, and writing emails to promote the drive. The penny drive lasts from Purim to Pesach. All parents and students are encouraged to donate for an undecided organization. Each classroom will be given a box for students to donate. The class with the most donations will win a prize. In the lobby a box will be for parents and guests to donate. Every donation counts.
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