3rd Blog – 2/17 – Have a wonderful break !
Reading: We continued, and finished, reading Because of Winn Dixie, analyzing how Opal reacts to problems that she faces. We’ve noticed that Opal faces them head-on, making her very brave. She asks the preacher about her mother, even though she is afraid to, and always talks back to the Dewberry boys. We then looked at different supportive characters, Gloria Dump, Miss Franny, and Amanda Wilkinson. We established that their roles are as advisor, friend, and challenger. These supporting characters help our main character move along their story mountain. Sometimes they make their journey easier, and sometimes they make it... Read More
February 17, 2023 — Have a wonderful break!
Judaics with Shira Fourth graders have been doing deep text study, moving on in the Toldot story. We started a new perek (chapter) where Yitzchak is now old, and preparing to give the birthright to Esav. The work we did studying for our shorashim challenge really paid off in comprehending this new text as students identified 15 different roots in the verses that we learned. Once we could understand the Hebrew text, it was time to go deeper and ask great questions. As the Torah’s descriptions can be relatively sparse, it does not often tell us what a character is... Read More
Kindergarten Blog 2/10
Dear Kindergarten Families, Today was the 92nd day of school. Kindergartners have been excitedly counting down the days to the 100th day of school, which is only eight school days away! In Hebrew we are currently reading the book Chanan HaGanan חנן הגנן (Chanan the Gardener), which outlines the different types of fruit and groups them together by color. For example, oranges, apricots, and mangos are all sorted together by their orange color. When reading the book, the students learned the verb “ohev/ohevet,” which means like. The students can now say “ani ohev tapoozim,”- אני אוהב\אוהבת תפוזים which means “I... Read More
First Grade News
Hello Families, In Hebrew, we learned how to use the question words mah? (what) and mi? (who) in our writing and speaking. We practiced how to ask questions and answer them using those words. We also learned how to write the letters hey and kuf in script. In Tefila this week, we learned two new prayers from the Amidah. The first prayer is matzmiach keren yeshuah. We listened to Louis Armstrong’s song – “What a wonderful world” and made a list of all the wonderful things in the world (In Hebrew). We discuss what we can do to... Read More
2/10 Second Grade Blog
Reading We learned about contractions! What contractions are, why they are used, how to make them and how to read them. We are also noticing words that have powerful patterns and how we use them to read fluently. For example, if you can read the word night then you can read the work flight or sight in a snap! Math The second graders just finished a unit on weight focusing on grams and kilograms. We also compared objects and noticed when the scale it is even on both sides. We are now moving into a math second book! We will... Read More
First Grade News
Hello Families, In Hebrew, we celebrated our accomplishments – finishing learning the Hebrew alef-bet and our nitzanim workbooks. I encourage you to look through your child’s workbook to see the amazing work that he/she has done! The first graders were also very excited to get a certificate for learning all of the Hebrew letters. We also learned how to write the letters resh, bet and vet in script. We continued to learn about Tu Bishvat.The first graders created two beautiful trees on our bulletin board. Each student described in writing what the tree has using different parts of the tree (leaves – alim,... Read More
Kindergarten Blog 2/3
Dear Kindergarten Families, Kindergartners are coming in each morning and afternoon excited to read the morning or afternoon message. They are working to read it on their own before the whole class reads it together. Making use of the repetition of the date, newly learned snap words, and a greeting in which only one word changes each day they are excited to see themselves becoming readers. They love it when there is a “teacher mistake” such as leaving the year off or leaving an initial letter off. Many children can be found voluntarily copying the message from the board... Read More
January 27, 2023 — Road to Revolution
At the bottom of this week’s blog, you will find a list of book recommendations and how to find book lists. Please read this section to support your child in their book search! Judaics with Shira Fourth Graders finished a significant unit in Chumash class, having studied 4 different chunks of torah text. We concluded the unit with an independent assessment and a celebration! For our open book, independent assessment, students were challenged to flip through the learned text to demonstrate numerous skills such as identifying characters, thinking about why certain characters are not present, identifying verbs and explaining their... Read More
First Grade News
Hello Families, In Hebrew, we continued to work on our word dictionary. We also started learning about Tu Bishvat (the birthday of the trees) and spent time learning Hebrew words related to the holiday. We started to practice changing words from singular to plural tense using different parts of trees. The first graders made beautiful trees and we are looking forward to learning more about Tu Bishvat next week! In Tefila, we learned two new prayers from the amida. The first prayer is called, shover oyvim umachniyah zedim. In this prayer we thank God for protecting us from danger. We spoke about who are the... Read More
3rd Blog – 1/27
We are continuing to read Because of Winn-Dixie and learning all about the main character, Opal. We thought that she was kind because she rescued Winn-Dixie, but we realized that it extended to people too when she asked Miss Franny to be her friend. We dug deeper into her personality to theorize why Opal is like this. We thought it might be because she’s lonely after moving to a new town and not having any friends. The thing she wants the most is to have friends. We are transferring these comprehension skills to the books we are reading in our... Read More