February 6
General Studies with Dawn We are deep into our study of the American Revolution. After learning as a whole group about the Stamp Act and The Boston Tea Party, students researched other events leading up to the war and taught their classmates about them. This included The Intolerable Acts, The Boston Massacre, The Townshend Acts, and the Battles at Lexington and Concord. Students have a good understanding of the frustrations that led up to the war and especially “Taxation without Representation.” After an overview of the war, students will choose a topic about the war and write an informational book.So... Read More
January 23
Judaic Studies with Ariana Fourth grade has been learning about Ancient Israel. We created a 3D time line that describes events from the Biblical Times of Abraham to the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions. We read historical sources and engaged in conversations about the different kings that reigned in Israel. We will continue to cover the stories more in depth through this year. We continue learning Chumash breaking down the pesukim determining which character is speaking each time, highlighting verbs and places too. In Tefillah, we have been working on Birkot ha Torah. Everyone is doing an amazing job! We are... Read More
Week of January 6
Judaic Studies with Ariana It’s been wonderful to see the students back in school. The first week we made sure to play community building games and ice breakers to get better acquainted with our new groups.We have also returned to our Chumash studies. We continue to explore the intricate story of Yaakov and Esav. We learned four new pesukim and have been working with our Chavruta teammates in our workbooks and notebooks. Next week, we will begin working on our Social Action Project. We are planning a visit to an animal shelter that will take place on the Senesh Week... Read More
Week of December 16
General Studies with Dawn Colonial America has been the focus of the Social Studies for the last few weeks. Students have learned about the difficult travel from England to Jamestown and Plymouth and the challenging first year the settlers had in both places. We have had a good time learning about some of the daily activities in the colonies such as knitting, baking (spice cookies), making and playing marbles, and making a ball and cup game. Gratitude has been the focus of the writing program. Over the last three weeks students have been responding to prompts about gratitude in a... Read More
Week of December 2
Hebrew with Rimma and Tomer In our Hebrew class we brainstormed about different objects and why they are unique. Each of us chose one object and wrote a paragraph, exploring a bit further and bringing our objects to life: where is it coming from, what is it made of and what makes this special to us. In addition, we are practicing for our Hebrew play which just around the corner and we are very excited about it. Judaic Studies with Ariana Fourth grade students continue learning Chumash, Parshat Toldot. With the help of our Chavruta partners,we have been... Read More
Week of November 11
General Studies with Dawn It was great to have the chance to meet with so many of you to share with each other how fourth grade is going so far. I look forward to more conversations in the future. We are busy this week with two major projects, publishing the Realistic Fiction Stories and creating posters and games about the explorers. Students are beginning the revision process of their stories. One step of the process was reading the story to a classmate and seeing if the classmate could identify the problem in the story and how it got solved. In... Read More
October 31
General Studies with Dawn We’ve covered a lot in our first full week in a while. In writing students continue to work on their Realistic Fiction Stories which we look forward to sharing with you at our Publishing Party on Thursday, November 21. We have been focusing on the concept of Showing Not Telling, and many students are beginning to use descriptive dialogue and action in their stories. We have also talked about the difference between telling a story and writing a summary, which is more of a list of events. In math we continue to work with factors, including... Read More
4th Grade News: October 18
Last Friday we celebrated twenty five years of the Hannah Senesh Community Day School. A highlight of the day was fourth graders having the opportunity to interview Jonathan and Rebecca Katz. I have to say I was really proud of the students, both in terms of the questions they developed and their engagement during the interviews. Jonathan was one of the founding parents and his daughter Rebecca was in the first graduating class in 2002. Students had prepared questions ahead of time, and each child had the opportunity to ask one of them. We learned of Jonathan’s vision of a... Read More
Fourth Grade, September 27,2019
General Studies Things have been bustling in the General Studies Room over the last two weeks. Students are getting to know each other, the routines of the classroom, and the expectations of life in the Fourth Grade In Writer’s Workshop we are learning about Realistic Fiction, stories that are grounded in reality but that did not actually happen. We have talked about the characters in stories and the fact that they have both external traits, such as being short, that can be seen and internal traits, such as determination, that cannot be seen. Both traits will be important in a... Read More
First Week in Fourth Grade
Fourth Grade General Studies It has been a wonderful first three days of school. We have spent time getting to know each other, including the ways that we are similar and different. For example, while many of us have siblings, like sports, and live in Brooklyn, only a few of us went to sleep away camp or can wiggle our ears. And only one of us lives in Manhattan, has a pet bird named Yasha, or has three children! We have also spent time setting up the classroom, including sewing pillow covers, making labels, and filling out the September calendar. ... Read More