First Grade News

Hello families,

This week in Hebrew, we learned the letter samech and we added lots of new words to our word wall like sira (boat), sus (horse), sulam(ladder), sal (basket), and sefer (book). We also went over all of the letters that we have learned so far and realized how much we have learned in such a short amount of time! The first graders were so excited to be able to read and write so many words.

In Yahadut, we learned about the holiday of Sukkot. We spoke about the four species and how they are similar in shape to parts of the human body (lulav – the spine, etrog – the heart, hadas – the eye, and arava – the mouth) and we all took turns shaking the lulav. It was a lot of fun! We also learned the rules for building a sukkah.

In P.E. first graders are trying sitting meditation with an emphasis on deeper breathing and some have commented that it has helped them to feel calm. They play fun tag games such as “Cookie Monster” to increase stamina. In addition, first graders are practicing underhand throwing, movement patterns designed to improve coordination, and using pickleball racquets.

This week we read “Of Thee I Sing” by Barak Obama and discussed inspiring people who are helpful, creative, leaders, brave, and much more. Using inspiration from this book we charted ideas of what we hope to do, learn, and be this year in first grade. After reading “What Can You Do” and “I Am Enough”, we discussed, drew, and wrote our hopes and dreams for the year. First graders are excited to climb to the top of the climbing wall, write poetry, make slime, study matter and energy, read long words, learn hopscotch, and read chapter books to name a few things! These are our intentions for the year!

1st graders have been studying each other’s names and noticing how sounds, word parts, and letters work together and then comparing information. This week in phonics we started to review our kindergarten snap words (words we recognize in a snap) and add them to the word wall. We also started to organize words to see what we want to work on individually in our word pouch. We also used these snap words to practice scooping up phrases to smooth our reading. When we find phrases that repeat, we practiced saying them how we speak to sound fluent instead of reading word by word.

Check out our pics:

Shabbat Shalom,

Liz and Ilana