Chocolate Fun and Social Action Trip
Writing In writing this week we let our imaginations soar! Second graders were given the choices of special stickers to use as main characters in their stories and were challenged to use the elements of a good story: a setting, characters, problem, and solution. Some of us created stories with a buddy, some of us worked independently, but it has been so fun being creative and deciding all the parts of our stories. Math In math we have been multiplying and dividing. We learned that multiplication numbers in a problem can be switched around (for example, 2×4 can also be... Read More
Chocolate Factory and Touring the North of Israel
Field Trip Preparations Most of our writing this week was spent preparing for our field trip to Cacao Prieto, a kosher chocolate factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We began the week by learning how to make chocolate, and took turns reading each slide in a slideshow. Check out the slideshow we created and learned from here. We practiced putting the steps in the correct order, and made illustrations to show what we learned. Then, we focused on the who of chocolate making, taking time to recognize each person and each job that is involved in making chocolate. We thought about... Read More
Growing Crystals, and Charades!
Hebrew Charades Every week in Hebrew we practice reading new vocabulary words from the board together. After, we reinforce the meaning of the words with a game of charades, before recording the words in our notebooks. In the pictures below you can see students acting out vocabulary words that start with the letter Shin. Try to guess what the students are acting out, or play a fun game of charades at home over Shabbat! Shin is for Shabbat We learned the letter Shin, the first letter of the word Shabbat. We talked and wrote about what we do in Kabbalat... Read More
Publishing Party Celebration and Preparing for Chanukkah
Science- Please read: Next week in science we would like to make crystals with the students. They are very excited about the idea. Please send a clean glass jar that is heat resistant to school with your child. A jar that had food in it would be suitable such as: spaghetti sauce, pickles, jam, honey. Publishing Party Thank you for attending the second grade publishing party! The joy and excitement from both students and parents was radiating throughout the room. We are all so proud of what the second graders have worked towards and accomplished so far this year. We... Read More
Social Action Trip and Thanksgiving
This week we were busy preparing for Thanksgiving! We read books about the history of Thanksgiving as well as a silly one about the lengths a turkey goes to in order to escape Thanksgiving dinner, called “Turkey Trouble” by Wendy Silvano. We prepared for our very first baking experiment of cornbread by discussing kitchen safety, hygiene, and expectations. Then, we had the opportunity to experience preparing for a Thanksgiving feast by cooking in the Hannah Senesh kitchen! Each student took a turn measuring, pouring and mixing our delicious cornbread. We worked together as a community to make something delicious! As... Read More
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... Read More
Hannah Senesh Tekes
Yahadut: Honoring Hannah Senesh at School Tekes Second graders joined the rest of the school in honoring Hannah Senesh at a school assembly. We brought our Hebrew writing along with us to share. It is now hanging in the hallway. Ask your child what they wrote about Hannah in Hebrew. Israel: Introducing “Sh’vil Yisra’el” Yaheli and Yuval visited our class and introduced us “Shvil Yisrael” the Israeli trail which runs from the north to south of Israel (kind of like Israel’s Appalachian trail). We split into groups with each group having to plan a packing list for a different area... Read More
Reading Groups, Writing Celebration and More!
Math This week in math we were regrouping machines! We regrouped in the ones, in the tens, and even in the hundreds. Some of us were challenged with numbers in the thousands! We reviewed the concept that if the sum of a number is more than 9, a two digit number, we must regroup. Next week we will be starting subtraction with regrouping. If you want to help your child get a head start, practice subtraction facts this weekend! Reading We had a big week in reading as we began our reading groups. Some groups worked on prefixes, idioms, and... Read More
Social Studies, Buddies, and More!
Social Studies We had a blast with our first social studies lesson! We explored three different kinds of communities: urban, suburban, and rural. We read the book Town Mouse, Country Mouse by Jan Brett and noticed how the story and beautiful illustrations gave us clues into the character traits and differences between the town mouse and country mouse. While we listened to the story we listed the differences between the lifestyles and appearance of each mouse, and we noticed that the Town Mouse wore bright and colorful clothes while the Country Mouse wore simple clothes in dull colors so not... Read More
Full Week of School!
Simchat Torah and Intro to Chumash In honor of Simchat Torah we took a closer look at the school’s torah. We compared it to the small torah that we have in our classroom. Ask your child about the similarities and differences that they noticed. We also watched a movie about a soferet, a scribe, and to learn more about how she writes a torah. Lastly we connected our studies of the torah as a ritual object, to the study of Chumash which we are beginning this year in second grade. The students are so excited to discover this new subject... Read More