Chumash and Nonfiction Writing

Writing

We have kicked off our next writing unit and delved into information writing. Second graders brainstormed lists of things they are experts at, and it was great to see all of the things that we can do so well! We shared different hobbies like rainbow loom, baking, swimming, and sports as well as experiences we have that make us experts- like taking care of a pet. We have made a table of contents to organize our writing and have started our introductions where we write about what we want to teach our reader. We have enjoyed seeing what we each are experts on and learning from each other.

Ask your child what they are writing about!

Phonics

This week we met a new classmate, our class mascot Gus! Gus was delivered by Stephanie at the front desk in a special box addressed to second grade with a letter and a treat. Gus wrote that he went to another school before coming to Senesh, but never learned any phonics. From the look of the spelling in his letter we could see that Gus needed our help! Gus also shared in the letter that he heard we made friendship cookies for kindness week for our 6th grade buddies, so he made us cookies too! As we got to know Gus we received new word books where we added words that can be tricky for second graders. We practiced the difference between “there”, “their”, and “they’re” with a special trick.

Give your child a paper and pencil and ask them to draw the “there”, “their”, “they’re” trick!

Chumash: Day 5 and Pocket Torah App

We finished day 5 in the creation story. After identifying vocabulary and practicing reading the verses on our own, we reviewed all we had learned and reinforced our reading skills by listening to the chapter being read through the Pocket Torah app. We have used this app a few times this year for this purpose, and students have become more familiar with how to adjust various settings, such as font size and reading speed. There is also a function to make the letters appear as they appear in a Torah scroll, unvocalized, and to appear with English translation. Using this app has been a great way to reinforce text skills and tech simultaneously!

Shinshinim: Tu B’shvat Activity

Elal and Zohar visited our classroom to teach us about celebrating Tu b’shvat in Israel. We played a guessing game again, this time with fruit and veggies. We also made collages of a shkediah, the special tree that blooms during the Tu b’shvat season.

Try this at home: create a list of items on post its and play a guessing game by sticking a note to someones head. They need to ask questions to figure out the clue. 

More Tzitzit Pictures

Second graders have been so excited to use our new tzitzit. For mots of the week just the chazan or chazanit used them during tfillah, but on Thursday, all students got a chance to try them out.