10/1 Kindergarten Blog
Dear Kindergarten Families, It’s getting chilly! The children had so much fun during our Simchat Torah celebrations on Monday, began learning about Fall in Hebrew, and conducted an exciting experiment in Science called “Sink or Float”. In our Morning Meetings, we sang songs that we know by heart at this point, and began to learn a new one called “You Gotta Sing”, replacing “sing” with our own verbs to move our bodies and make the song our own. On Monday, we had almost a full day of Simchat Torah events. The children constructed their own sukkot out of... Read More
First Grade News
Dear Families, On Monday, we celebrated Simchat Torah with our fifth-grade buddies! We built sukkot out of snacks, danced with the Torah, and got to know our buddies on the roof. Check out pictures from the event below! In General Studies, we are continuing to work on our Hopes and Dreams, and practice classroom routines. We have begun our Handwriting unit, especially focusing on pencil grip and posture, and numbers 1-5. Reminder: Please return writing workshop folders on Monday! In Hebrew this week, we learned our first vowel, which makes the “Ah” sound and what sound the letter tav makes when you add this vowel. We reviewed some words that started with... Read More
9/24 Kindergarten Blog
Dear Kindergarten Families, What a fun week it’s been! The children had their first Art and Science classes and started learning the brachot for t’filah! In our Morning Meetings, we continued getting to know each other by sharing our favorite animals and treats (cotton candy was the most popular by far!). We learned a new song, Deep and Wide, and continued practicing ones we learned last week, including our special Hebrew Sukkot song. In General Studies we had our first phonics lesson, studying the name of our classroom mascot, Mabel the elephant. We looked at her name, counting the... Read More
First Grade News
Hello Families, We so enjoyed celebrating sukkot with all of you! In Hebrew, we learned the letter tav. First graders were so excited to work start work on their letter books for the first time. In writing we also started to work in our handwriting books, reviewing our numbers and singing our handwriting songs from last year! We also have continued to work on our hopes and dreams for the year, reading and discussing the amazing accomplishments of the people we learned about in “Of Thee I Sing” by Barak Obama. In reading, we practiced finding syllables, rhymes, and words... Read More
September 17, 2021 — The Start of Something New
Judaic Studies with Shira We were so excited to be able to do an actual Tashlich cremony this year outside of school, after not being able to leave school last year. Fourth graders walked to the Gowanus Canal as a whole class with Shira and Hilary, side-by-side with their “tfilah buddies”, the student they sit next to at whole group tfillah each day. Every student sits next to a student from the other group to give them a chance to interact more with other students. We collected natural items along the way, such as leaves or acorns, to discard into... Read More
3rd Grade 9/13
We had a great first week of school, even if it was a short one! The students got to know each other by playing games and sharing about their summer. We also began exploring the Senesh motto: Take care of Ourselves and Take Care of Others. The students came up with examples for each such as “Be respectful and kind”, “Make good decisions”, and “Don’t be mad at yourself.” In Writing, the students used their summer artifacts as a springboard to write about their summer. Some wrote about camp or places they visited. In Reading, the students explored the classroom... Read More
September 17: First Week of School!
Dear Kindergarten Families, Please be sure to read the whole blog so as not to miss important reminders at the end! We had a wonderful first week in Kindergarten! Even though we were only in school for 2 ½ days, lots happened during the first week of Kindergarten. We started each day with a Morning Meeting where we started to get to know each other’s names with a different greeting each day. We sang Willoughby Wallaby and Baby Beluga. We began to learn about all the different routines such as putting our snacks and lunches in the correct... Read More
Picture yourself in 2nd Grade 9/17/21
This week in General Studies we had a great time getting to know one another and reacquainted with old friends. Each morning we engaged in a morning meeting where we greeted our classmates, took part in an activity, talked about our daily schedule, and reviewed the calendar. We also talked about what it means to be in second grade and artfully created self portraits! As part of our social emotional learning curriculum, we discussed what it means to take care of ourselves, others, our community/environment and what this looks like in school. These three values help keep our classroom a... Read More
First Grade Blog
Hello Families, We are so excited to begin first grade! This week, we learned about classroom routines and spent time meeting our new friends. Students thought about what they want to accomplish in first grade, and then the class created their Hopes and Dreams for the year, In Hebrew/Judaics, we learned about the importance of Yom Kippur, and are beginning to learn about Sukkot. We are so excited to see you next week in the sukkah! A couple of reminders as we begin the year: Please be on time to school! Our day starts right away at 8:25 when students... Read More
Week 1 as 8th Graders!
HUMANITIES I am so very excited to begin my third year at Hannah Senesh (and my 8th year in education) with this group of 8th graders! We are beginning this year by writing personal essays in preparation for the high school process. Ask your children about E.B. White’s “Death of the Pig” and hemorrhagic infarcts!. As students read books from contemporary and historic American authors in their ELA course, they will also learn about the rich American legacy in their Social Studies course. I look forward to all the curiosity the students bring! Joseph, jhayden@hannahsenesh.org JUDAICS !ברוכים הבאים /... Read More