Math Apps and Social Action Trip

Celeberating Chanukkah 

Second graders lit Chanukkah candles every day last week. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we lit with the whole school in the gym. Our chazanim, Ben and Rephael, were so excited to represent our class in lighting with their buddies for the whole school on Wednesday.

On Thursday we lit with our buddies in our classroom. After lighting candles with our buddies, we watched a video of our sixth grade buddies from when they were in second grade and were in the Chanukkah play. We then, we split into smaller groups to play dreidel. It was so nice to celebrate with our buddies and to see how we are part of a school tradition of performing in the Chanukkah play.

 

On Friday, we celebrated as a class, just second grade, during Kabbalat Shabbat. It was such a nice way to end the week of celebrations as a second grade community!

Science and Hanukkah!

In the General Studies room we brought some Hanukkah celebration to our subjects. We took a solid, chocolate chips, and melted them into a liquid. Each child got a marshmallow, Hershey kiss, and pretzel stick to construct a dreidel, which they then dipped in the melted chocolate. There were also sprinkles on hand for decoration! Another day, we made salt dough, which students rolled out and made Hanukkah shapes using cookie cutters. After they dried, students creatively painted them.

We have been exploring what happens when we mix different solids (gravel, toilet tissue, and salt) in water and ways to separate them.  They learned how to separate a salt and water solution, which was not possible by using a funnel or coffee filter. Ask your child about what they did and the result.  These experiments were followed by more detailed study of dissolving. Students observed sugar grains and a sugar cube and did a dissolving race between these two forms.  They made predictions, wrote down their results, analyzed the information, and discovered that the speed of dissolving varied depending on how the two forms of sugar were stirred, and the size of the solid.  

In preparation for an upcoming project, please send with your child an empty glass jar. It doesn’t need to be purchased; a used spaghetti, sauerkraut, applesauce jar for instance, will be great.  Many thanks!

Writing

We have begun our next writing unit on nonfiction writing. We have been studying various books that teach us how to do something- like how to build a house and how to play football. We have begun writing our own how to books, focusing on who our audience is, and how to explain a process in a sequence. We have all just begun our first stories and already can see that these second graders are experts in so many things!

Over the weekend, brainstorm other “how to” books your child can write.

Math

In math we have been multiplying and dividing. We learned that multiplication numbers in a problem can be switched around (for example, 2×4 can also be written as 4×2 and it will not effect the answer), but division sentences cannot be switched around. We practiced multiplication and division problems in a hands-on way, like using blocks, cubes, and counters to represent the problem.

COMING UP: We will be focusing on the 2s, 5s, and 10s times tables. Give your child a head start by practicing counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s, or by giving them some simple multiplication problems to practice around the house!

Extra Practice: If you’d like to download some apps for your child to practice multiplication we recommend the following:

1. Mystery Math Town
2. Math Museum
3. Quick Math
4. Math Dots
5. Eggy Times Tables
6. Quick Math Jr

With all use of technology, we recommend parent supervision and setting up expectations like no guessing, take your time, and if you make a mistake try again.

 

Social Action Trip to Cobble Hill Health Center

We visited the Cobble Hill Health Center for the second time this year. We performed the song and dance from the Chanukkah play. A number of students participated in a Tae Kwan Doe demonstration, and Cyrus and Nava performed on the cello and flute. It was a lovely visit, and we could already see that the second graders were feeling more comfortable than during their first visit. Thank you so much to parent volunteers Shulamit, Saskia, and Shira, for joining and helping!

Kad Katan at Cobble Hill from Hannah Senesh on Vimeo.