Bingo, Creation of Adam, Purim and Pesach

Social Studies

We began our new unit on another cultural community represented in Brooklyn: the Caribbean! We looked at a map of the Caribbean and described what we know about the Caribbean, and what information we can gleam from a map. Students shared that the Caribbean has many small islands, is a hot climate, and has many beaches. To learn more about what life is like in the Caribbean compared to New York, we read the book Angelina’s Island by Jeanette Winters. This is a warm story about a Jamaican girl now living in New York City. In the story we learned about Angelina’s Island in the sun and how she found comfort in celebrating at the West Indian Parade right here in Brooklyn. We are started learning about the fruits and foods and music that our Caribbean neighbors bring to our community.

To connect our celebrations with the ones read in the book, we talked about Purim and how it compares to the Carnival celebration. We wrote down what is different and the same, noticing that both celebrations involve having fun with family and friends, eating special foods, listening to music, wearing costumes, and being proud of your heritage. We are excited to delve deeper into the Caribbean community!

Math

In math we were all about the money, money, money! We learned about each coin, its value, and how to write the value using a dollar and cent sign. We played a game where we grouped the coins, counted them, and traded them in for other values. Through hands on activities simulating real world scenarios, games, and written practice we are working on becoming money experts. The trickiest part of the money unit is remembering that when we write down dollar and cent amounts there is place value involved. So writing the amount twenty-two dollar and five cents should look like $22.05 rather than $22.5. Our next unit we will begin is on fractions.

To give your child a head start, see if you can find fractions around your house or even in your food! Cut up a pizza pie and practice writing fractions!

Hebrew: Ayin and Bingo 1-29

We learned our last regular letter in script, Ayin! Ayin appears in many numbers in Hebrew, especially from 10-29, so we used this as an opportunity to review our number knowledge. Students created their own Bingo boards, and were able to represent numbers in three different forms: numerically, verbally, and in Gematriyah.

Chumash: Creation of Adam

We learned the verse about the creation of Adam from dust of the earth. Watch as the second graders read and act out the verse.

Purim: Presenting our Work to each other

Our class megillah is hanging in the hallway. Students had the chance to stand in front of their classmates and present and explain their work to each other.

Pesach

We have begun studying about the story of Passover and the steps of the Seder. Watch as the second graders sing the order of the seder with hand motions symbolizing what we do at each part of the seder.