Chocolate Factory and Touring the North of Israel

Field Trip Preparations

Most of our writing this week was spent preparing for our field trip to Cacao Prieto, a kosher chocolate factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We began the week by learning how to make chocolate, and took turns reading each slide in a slideshow. Check out the slideshow we created and learned from here. We practiced putting the steps in the correct order, and made illustrations to show what we learned. Then, we focused on the who of chocolate making, taking time to recognize each person and each job that is involved in making chocolate. We thought about the farmers and harvesters of cacao beans, the delivery people who ship the cacao beans, and the factory workers and chocolatiers who turn the beans into chocolate bars. We took a look at the Cacao Prieto website and learned about the real workers we would meet, and we discussed their job titles which ranged from “Founder and CEO” to “Retail Manager” to “Assistant Chocolatier.” We wrote focused questions to different staff members, such as, “Is it hard to mold chocolate? Do you have to do it carefully?” and “What is it like to be CEO of a chocolate factory?” Our field trip to Cacao Prieto also connected to our social studies unit on communities, where we discussed how places like factories can change a community.

Ask your child to describe one of the machines they saw, or how the chocolate tasted!

Social Studies

We are continuing comparing and contrasting urban, suburban and rural communities. We read the book The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton and noticed the progress made in the story as the “country” grew into an urban area. We compared and contrasted the transportation and the types of buildings and the differences between the “country” and the “city.” We then got to create our very own little house, which included writing pieces comparing communities, listing transportation changes, and how the character’s feelings changed over the course of the story. We also used a reading comprehension strategy- using the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, and why) to really check our understanding of the main parts of the story.

Ask your child how the Little House changes throughout the story.

Science

Students eagerly ran into the room Monday to see what had happened over the weekend in their salt/water solution jars. During science, we reviewed the procedure of how we made salt crystals. Each pair compared and contrasted their jars with one another and drew their observations. They were so excited to examine with magnifying glasses the beautiful crystals that had grown. For the second science period this week, we conducted an experiment about separating mixtures of color. They put black marker on coffee filter paper, and carefully put water on it drop by drop to find the hidden colors. Some of us also conducted the experiment with vinegar to see how the result was different than with water. 

Amazing things happened! Be sure to ask your child to describe the experiment.

 

 

 

Israel: The Kinneret and the Golan

The Shinshinim took us to two places this week. We toured around the north of Israel and visited the Golan and the Kinneret. In the Golan we played a navigational game. One student was a “cow” and the other students had to look at a map and direct them through the fence using the Hebrew directional words. At the Kinneret we drank cups of water to reveal interesting facts about Israel’s largest freshwater lake. Ask your child some thing they learned about the Kinneret.

Yahadut: Chanukkah

The week has been filled with Chanukkah celebrations! School candle lighting, buddy time, playing dreidel, making candles, and more. Looking forward to seeing you on Monday at the play!

 

Art with Iviva:

In addition to getting ready for the Hanukkah play, we had some time to review our artwork from the fall, finish up or change past projects, and share our artwork with our classmates. We are learning how to ask constructive questions and share positive feedback using detailed descriptions of what we see.