General Studies with Hilary:

Dear Third Grade Families,

What a week of change! Academically, we have been diligent investigators in Social Studies and math by learning more about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and multiplication.

Social Studies and Writing

In Social Studies, we concluded our study of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. For the past two weeks, we have focused on perspective writing. Taking all of the information learned throughout the first week of January, about the Civil Rights Movement and Rosa Parks’ standing up for her rights as a human on a bus, students were asked to walk a day in the shoe of someone living in 1955. Third graders wrote diary entries from the perspective of someone riding the bus with Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955, the day Rosa refused to give up her seat. Some students put themselves in the shoes of the bus driver or the police officer who arrested Mrs. Parks, while others decided to create an unknown character who was also on the bus — be them white or black, old or young, male or female. In their diary entries, students zoomed in on the moment that Rosa Parks, using their five senses to imagine what it was like in the moment. It is challenging to put oneself in the position of someone else, and we are so proud of the third graders for working hard through this assignment.

Come check out our bulletin board, which has all of our amazing diary entries on display!

Click here to watch a video about the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Click here for a video of Pete Seeger singing We Shall Overcome

Math

On top of all of this, we also worked on two new multiplication games: circles and stars; multiplication top it. Both of these games are ones you can play at home with your student! They are also games your student played with a 7th Grader. Many of us were shocked to hear that the 7th Graders couldn’t remember how to multiply!

GAME 1: In circles and stars, we are working on pictorial representations of a multiplication fact, as well as writing out repeated addition. To play this game, you need two six-sided dice and a piece of paper. After rolling the dice, one of them will represent the number of stars you will draw (# of groups), and the second die represents the number of stars in each circle (amount per group). This activity goes to the next level of complexity when using a 10-sided die, which means there will be higher numbers multiplied.

GAME 2: To play “Multiplication Top It,” all you need is a deck of cards! Right now, we are only using 1-10 (an ace card equaling one). We play this game with three levels right now:

• Level 1
  • Use cards 1-10, and split them evenly between two people — 20 cards per person
  • Each player flips over two cards
  • Multiply the two cards in front of you
  • The player with the higher hand wins the cards if that round
  • To win: end the game with all 40 cards!
• Level 2
  • Use cards 1-10
  • Each person flips over 1 card
  • Multiply those two cards together
  • The person who says the correct product first wins the hand
  • To win: end the game with all 40 cards!
• Level 3
  • Use cards 1-King
    • Jack = 11
    • Queen = 12
    • King = 13
  • Then follow the rules of Level 1 OR 2

The first level of this game is all about practice and is less time sensitive. The second level is all about automaticity of our math facts. It is sort of like practicing with flash cards — but FUN!

Topics to talk about with your student:

• Provide an equation for your student — can they turn it into a story problem?
• Why was Montgomery Bus Boycott successful?
• In what way have you stood up for your rights?

The information you have ALL been wondering about: our celebratory theme! The Third Graders have cast their votes! This celebration’s theme will be Sports Day. For this celebration, students are asked to come dressed as an athlete — any athlete — as we celebrate our 100 boxes throughout the day. For this sports player, it could be football, it could be archery, it could be gymnastics, it could be dance, it could be baseball — it is literally dressing up to represent ANY sport! A third grader could even come in dressed as a baseball! Let your creativity fly 🙂

Dates to know:

Monday, January 21 — no school (MLK Day)

Friday, January 25 — 3rd Grade 100 Boxes Celebration! SPORTS DAY

Friday, February 1 — 2:30pm dismissal starts back up

Wednesday, February 6 — THE TALENT SHOW @ 9am in the Gym

Enjoy your long weekend!

Hilary

Hebrew with Ilana Swisa

This week the third grade learned a legend about Moshe and The Gout.
We worked on vocabulary and comprehension and the student wrote a skit
and act it. Also we learn a new song “Yesh Li Ach Katan” “I Have a
Little Brother”. The students had vocabulary and next Tuesday they
will have a quiz.

Here is the link for the song:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsC_bMHMJFs

Shabbat Shalom!

Judaic Studies with Phyllis

We learned about Tu B’shevat in Ancient Israel through a midrash called “Solomon and the Trees,” found the Shivat HaMinim (seven species of Ancient Israel) in a verse from Deuteronomy, and played a Shivat HaMinim matching game.