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Guest Teacher, Shinshinim, and Art!

Heights and Hills Workshop

To kick off our Social Action Project this year, we had a workshop in our classroom with a teacher from the Heights and Hills organization. Second graders shared things that they think will be good and not good when they get older. Students shared it will be nice to have grandchildren and to make their own rules. Some second graders share that it will be harder to be active, and to do things by themselves. The teachers from Heights and Hills discussed how their organization helps people over the age of 60 who need help living their daily lives, and how they try to bring activities, joy, and social opportunities to these people. Then, the second graders had the task of putting on special glasses and having their fingers taped to show them how people can feel when their vision starts to get weaker and when they have arthritis. Tasks like organize pills into different containers, count change, and open a zipper were made difficult with the glasses and taped hands. At the end of the activity students shared that it felt harder and they needed help. This highlighted how important the work Heights and Hills does for the community.

Our next step is to make birthday cards for the elderly people so that they can feel happy on their upcoming birthdays. Now that we are working on kindness at home and at school, this activity allows us to bring kindness to the greater community. In two weeks we will continue our social action project with a visit to the Cobble Hill Health Center.

In your child’s homework folder is a flyer with more information about Heights and Hills- check it out!

 

Shinshinim- A Story of Peace

Elal and Zohar told us the story of Uzu and Muzu, two brothers who got along, but then didn’t. Students got a chance to act out parts of the story while listening to it being told. The surprising thing about the story is that it ends with the brothers still in a fight, which seemed strange to the children. The shinshinim asked the students, “Is this a happy ending?” and “What could the brothers have done differently?” They related the story to the concept of Peace, and students drew their own interpretation of peace which will be compiled into a group mural by the Shinshinim.

Art with Iviva

We started building some of the land forms we’d learned about in social studies in art class. After we helped define what each land form is and viewed photographs of examples of plains, mountains and valleys, canyons and volcanoes, Iviva gave us air dry clay, model magic, cardboard, paint, tissue paper, and we cut, glued, folded, twisted and molded the materials into each land form. We worked in small teams to make each one. We can’t wait to continue working on these projects.