Welcome to 2nd Grade!
Welcome to 2nd Grade! We are excited to begin this school year and are hard at work preparing to greet your special second graders on the first day of school, Tuesday, September 3rd. On the first day of school, please send your child with: A dairy or pareve morning snack (every day) A dairy or pareve lunch (every day, unless your child is signed up for school lunch) Water bottle (labeled with their name, can stay in school) Spare change of clothing in a labeled bag (stays in school till end of year) Wearing sneakers, or shoes they can comfortably run in (PE... Read More
Last Trip to Cobble Hill Health Center
Chocolate Factory In celebration for finishing our class read aloud Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl, we decided we now need to visit a real chocolate factory. Before taking our field trip to Cacao Prieto, a kosher chocolate factory in Red Hook, we learned about the actual process of making chocolate. Through a slideshow and nonfiction literature, we practiced putting the steps of making chocolate in the correct order and learned new vocabulary words like tempering, conching, and nib. Check out the slideshow we learned from here. Then, we focused on the who of chocolate making, taking time to recognize each person and... Read More
Lag Ba’Omer, Hebrew Letter Party, and Chumash Ceremony
Lag Baomer This year due to the rainy weather we had Lag Baomer indoors. We began our day with Tefila with our team color, lead by the older graders and learning catchy cheers for our team. We made team banners, played lots of collaborative games, ran relay races, and spent the sunny afternoon in the park. We even got to roast marshmallows over an open flame in the park since kids in Israel celebrate with bonfires. Second graders showed great sportsmanship throughout the day by congratulating other teams and encouraging each other. Hebrew We finished learning the whole Hebrew... Read More
Fairy Tales and Yom Ha’atzmaut
Yom Ha’atzmaut We celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut with the rest of the school. In the morning we attended the school tekes led by the fifth and sixth graders, followed by an Israeli snack of Bisli. Then we had four stations with the third grade students and teachers: Israeli games with Shira and Hillary Yemenite folktales with Aliza Dancing with Ilana and Sammi Hamsa making with Jessica and Julie Ask your child which of the four games we learned about was actually invented in Israel! Repahel’s parents came in to tell us about Mishel’s family’s story of immigration from Iran to Israel.... Read More
Library Field Trip and Celebrating Pesach
Chag Pesach Sameach! We’ve spent the past few weeks preparing for Passover. Students read the story in Hebrew and made personal haggadot and seder plates. Our class seder was a culmination of all the learning we’ve been doing, as students were able to put items on their own seder plate and lead a class seder together. Chag Sameach to all the second grade families! Students hand out seder plate items while other students tell them where on plate to place them. Our seder plates are ready! Go serving crew! Phoenix leads the order of the seder Ronnie and Eleanor... Read More
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... Read More
Purim and Kindness Week
Community Building This week we have been focusing on kindness- how we can spread kindness at home, in school, and the greater community. Second graders heard the story Each Kindness, by Jacqueline Woodson, a story about a girl named Maya who moves to a new school and the main character Chloe chooses to be unkind to her. Maya attempts many times throughout the story to befriend Chloe, but Chloe continues to choose to be unkind. As we discussed how we thought the story would end most students predicted “They will make up and become friends”. However, the story closes with... Read More
100th day, Science,
Celebrating Rosh Chodesh with Pajama Day! We had a fun filled Pajama Day today! Kids loved seeing their friends and teachers in pajamas, as well as having their stuffed animals in school. We joined the rest of the school in singing “Mi shenichnas Adar Marbin B’simcha” (When Adar comes, we are happy!) during the school wide pajama parade. During Hebrew we listened to and read the words to the popular song about a Zebra and pajamas. We also made our stuffed animals speak to each other in Hebrew! 100th Day of School Right before break we celebrated the 100th day... Read More
Uganda, Buddies, Math Celebration and More!
Buddy Time: 99th Day of School! We met our buddies on Thursday, the 99th day of school. In honor of the 99th day we played Bingo in Hebrew and a special 99 related Bingo game. Math This week we officially finished our math 2A workbooks! As a final project the second graders created board games where they had to make problems from each unit we’ve learned. They enjoyed being creative and modeling their games after some favorites like “Sorry” “Shoots and Ladders” and “Trouble”. We had a blast playing these games and reviewing all that we have learned! The... Read More
Poetry, Tallit, and Vanishing Points!
Reading and Writing We have been making many connections between reading and writing as we have began our poetry unit. Second graders began to look at ordinary objects with a poet’s heart and mind. We studied poetry from several authors and noticed that poets make comparisons to help the reader paint a picture in their mind. We listened to poems with our eyes closed, talked about visualization, and of course began writing our very own poems. With bags filled with mysterious objects, we had to reach in and write poems using comparisons. Staple removers became ferocious sharks, paintbrushes became brooms... Read More