November 28: Weeks 12 and 13!

Humanities

The 7th grade has been busy selecting passages to perform for a Julius Caesar Open Mic, as well as writing about the characters, ideas, and language of the play. Our cumulative vocabulary test will be on Friday, December 14th. I loved playing with words this past Wednesday! Ask your child to see their videos and pictures – they are posted in Google Classroom under the Vocabulary section of classwork.

I’m challenging 7th graders to find more balance in their work: repetition is only ONE strategy for learning new ideas, words, and concepts. Memorizing an exact definition by heart won’t help you if you can’t understand the context of the idea or term. If your student asks you to quiz them on their vocabulary, I suggest using the idea of storytelling, instead of only quizzing – Tell me about a time when you were reprimanded for something. What’s a moment when you really enjoyed a sense of solitude? If you could pick anyone to be a part of your triumvirate to rule the world, who would you pick? (Oprah and Harry Potter, obvi!) What’s an activity where someone really needs precision in order to perform it correctly? What do you consider to be a panacea for a difficult day?

Associating words (as well as concepts or moments from literature and history) to our own experiences is another strategy to increase retention and support comprehension.

Hebrew

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Before the students went out to break we finished our unit on “Music”. This week we started a new unit about ” Trips in the north of Israel”. Students learned about a special ancient city named Peki’in.

They learned about the history of the city and what makes it so unique. In addition, they had a fun activity with the Shinshinim and made chocolate balls!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

In the last few weeks we started a unit on “Israeli food”.

Students read texts and learned about the Israeli kitchen and culture, They practiced conversations , wrote short stories and and had short listening comprehension activities on the material.

Math

The 7th grade has gone deep into the world of Algebra where letters become variables, numbers become constants or coefficients, terms are introduced, and unknowns are found. Seeing letters in math can be confusing, but once the purpose of their presence and what they represent are understood, everything becomes clear. Even though Algebra may appear to be abstract, we have learned that algebraic expressions and equations have many practical uses. Algebra can become quite complicated, sure, but for now we’re just scratching the surface.

Science

The STEAM Rube Goldberg project is coming to an end. Students have been working extra hard finalizing the last of the functional parts. The excitement of getting working Rube Goldberg has been infectious. Now students are adding elements of A in STEAM in order for the theme to shine in their project. We cannot wait to present these amazing projects next Thursday in the gym at 9am.

Mike Noll and Samantha Butwin

Hebrew Heritage

להורים שלום

השבוע סיימנו את היחידה שלנו על החלטות והתחלנו יחידה חדשה על הגירה. התלמידים התבקשו לשתף עם תלמידי הכיתה סיפורי הגירה משפחתיים שהיו מעניינים מאד.

סוף שבוע נעים,

אילנה

Judaic Studies

We completed our study of Rabbinic texts about what makes a successful learning community. 7th graders took what they’d learned from Pirkei Avot (a section of Mishna), Rambam, and Talmud to create their own ideal learning communities. We tried to put what we’d learned into practice as we studied the Tower of Babel (Bereshit, Chapter 11), reflected on the type of community that story illustrates, and worked on the chevruta skills of listening and responding to each other.

This week we began a new unit, bringing us back to Bnai Yisrael and their travels through the wilderness. We are exploring crucial questions like: Why do people complain? What metaphor best describes your anger? The goal of this unit is to build translation skills; read closely; and improve in our abilities to ask and respond to kushiyot (difficulties in the text).

Enjoy some photos of students acting out the ideas of the Rambam and creating thank you cards for Thanksgiving!