Hawthorn, Magnolia and Cherry Blossom Petals

Dear Senesh Community,

As our Brooklyn streets slowly grow with soft white and pink petals, so have the hearts and minds of our Second Grade scholars as we enter our last eight weeks of school and celebrate Yom Hah’aztmaut.  As our learning community inoculates and our herd immunity strengthens, we look forward to warm, sunny days of inspiration, peace and well-earned success. Please read on below to learn about specific grade-level developments by content area.

General Studies – Jacob

All school year, the second-graders have been engaged in meaningful learning opportunities. They have strengthened their fiction and persuasive writing skills, grown their reading fluency and comprehension, and much, much more. The new learning has been great, but these second-graders aren’t just learners; they can be teachers too! In fact, they are already experts on the topics that they are passionate about, and for the months leading into the break, the second-graders tapped into their expertise and wrote nonfiction books to teach others about the topics they love. They worked carefully, organizing their ideas, thinking critically about the most important information to share. The second-graders drafted their pieces, carefully including the writing mechanics of published authors. Finally, they revised their work, making sure it made sense, and added interesting introductory sentences to each section to capture the reader’s attention. Their finished work is a joy to read, and the children were proud to share their published pieces with the pod. Their nonfiction books will be coming home at the end of the year, but until then, feel free to ask your child about their topic, and I’m sure they will be excited to share!

Math & Science – John

Our mathematicians and future scientists of the planet have returned to in-person learning with zeal for their final spring months of 2021.  We continue to plug away as we hone our bar modeling skills with addition and subtraction using comparisons and the ordering of metric and standard units of length.  We had fun measuring each other in meters and centimeters as well as many other classroom objects.  For Yom Ha’aztmaut, our second graders celebrated the 73rd anniversary of Israel’s Independence Day with an introductory lesson on prime and composite numbers.  We learned that 73 is a prime number because it can only be made by multiplying one set of factors, 1 and itself.  This served as a great, well-anticipated lesson on multiplication which drew upon previous knowledge with skip-counting and doubles facts.  Out scholars look forward to more practice with multiplication and times tables next month in our upcoming unit.

We found new homes for our earthworms in our school compost bin with hundreds of new friends awaiting their arrival from their ventilated compost bags.  Some of our students brought them home to their own gardens or released them under cool shady trees in Brooklyn parks.  Our scientists completed their mid-unit assessment on the different types of soils, by analyzing and forming conclusions on the properties and components of their “Mystery Soil Mixture”.  Each student performed four separate tests to determine what their soil was made of; loam, a mix of sand, clay and humus, clay and humus and sand and clay.  We are excited to begin planting vegetable seeds next week to test how plants grow in different environments, by recording our observations in our plant booklets.  We will also have the opportunity to learn about the importance of root propagation with filtered water and test tubes.  Our future scientists are excited for their journey of exploration and discovery through the lens of an organic vegetable seed in well-propagated fertile soil.

Hebrew & Judaic Studies – Ariana

We are so excited to be back.  The children have been learning all about Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s 73rd birthday.  This has been our main focus since we returned, both in Hebrew and Judaic Studies.

First, we learned about the fact that the modern state of Israel was established in 1948 and while 73 could be a lot of years for a human being, it is not that long for a country.  Israel is young and very accomplished.  The children created their own Israeli flags and explored the map of Israel and the main Israeli landmarks.  We also voted on a city we would want to focus our attention on.

Pod A voted for Tel Aviv, Pod B voted for Beersheba and Pod C voted for Haifa.

We will all focus on Jerusalem, the Capital city on Yom Yerushalayim.  The children have been working on a new book solely focused on Israeli cities.  We have been completing word search assignments and more about cities such as Haifa, the region of the Galil, the Negev and more.

On Yom Haatzmaut, each pod created a poster of their chosen city with important features and characteristics.  We plan to extend the Israel unit to continue exploring and celebrating this important topic.

In addition, in Judaic Studies we have been learning Chumash.  We learned about the 5th and six day of creation.  We read the new pesukim(verses) and focused on the new vocabulary.  We reflected on the fact that human beings were created last and how they have a responsibility to protect the rest of the creation.  We are excited and looking forward to learning more in the weeks ahead.

Music – Heidi

After their study of the orchestra through Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, second graders have moved on to the instruments of a Jazz Band, starting with the voice and scatting. They had a blast playing scatting conversation games. Even John joined in, much to their delight. And we learned Louis Prima’s song, “Sing Sing Sing” – just in time for the announcement that we can now sing sing sing in Music Class. Hurray!

All the best,
Heidi