Dear Third Grade Families,

We have done so much work these past two weeks!

In Social Studies, we started learning about the Lenni Lenape, which is the Native American tribe that lived in New York City back in 1600. We started by looking at a map of Manhattan from the 2000s, and comparing it to a map of what Eric Sanderson (a landscape ecologist) — through research — believed Mannahatta (land of many hills)  looked like in 1600.  Students noticed that the Hudson River looked wider back then. Some wondered if the water level had dropped and maybe that’s why the land is now bigger/wider. Another observation is that we have a LOT more buildings now, compared to back then when space was green, covered by forests and filled with over 500 hills. We then discussed the names of the three sub-tribes to the Lenape: Munsee (who are represented by the wolf); Unlachto (who are represented by the turkey); and Unami (who are represented by the turtle).

We then tried two different strategies for taking notes. One method is watching a video and answering questions based on what you watched. The other method is reading a passage, answering those questions, and then going into groups — where people read different information about the Lenape — to share what you learned. This second method is called “jigsaw sharing,” because we’re working together to fit the pieces of knowledge about something, specifically the Lenape tribe before 1609. We tried these methods when learning about:

• Social Roles in society
• Clothing and Appearance
• Hunting
• Gathering
• Medicine
• Shamans/Spirits

On Wednesday, students listed their top choices for their research project. This will be worked on over the next three weeks, where students — in partnerships — will delve deeper in learning about one aspect of the Lenape tribe. This project has students socially learning to work together on a project, while academically learning how to pick out important information from a source AND put it into our own words. We can’t wait to share their hard work with you at that end of the month!

In Writing, as you may know, we finished our first writing unit! Third Graders have been working very hard to create descriptive personal narrative stories. Last week, we worked tirelessly on writing out our final copy for Wednesday’s and Thursday’s share with our 7th Grade Buddy Class. Our buddies just finished their own writing, which was a research paper about secondary sources in Ancient Rome. Third Graders deserve a round of applause for trying new techniques, such as an attention-grabbing introduction/conclusion, dialogue, and descriptive language.   

 

 

 

 

One 7th grader shared how interesting our writing was, and how it was written better than her own research paper.  Another expanded by connecting that their papers were secondary sources, while 3rd Graders wrote primary sources. Just the ability and chance to write was a BIG crowd pleaser among the Third Graders.

This week, students were introduced to reading groups, which we call Book Clubs. The six books that Third Graders are reading are some of my personal favorites, and I’m very excited to share them with the class! Every book club period has ended with student’s saying they want to keep going and continue to read.

Activities you can do with your student:

• Look at the map of Mannahatta (from 1600) compared to Manhattan today → what differences do you see?
• • • Click here for a link from the Welikia Project, which shows modern day NYC and provides information for what used to be there
• Look at the cover of a book and predict what it might be about based on the title and the cover illustration.
• Try to add items from a receipt, such as a restaurant receipt or grocery list, to practice addition stacking

Dates to know in November:

• Conferences:
  • Thursday, November 8 — 4:00-6:30
  • Monday, November 12 — 8:00-6:30
• Early Dismissal Begins: Starting TODAY, Friday, November 9, school ends at 1:30
• No School: Thursday, November 22; Friday, November 23 (Thanksgiving weekend)
• 3rd Grade Publishing Party: Friday November 30
  • 8:15-9:00 → Coffee with Karen in the Library
  • 9:00-9:45 → 3rd Grade Celebration in the Gym

I look forward to seeing everyone for conferences! Shabbat Shalom!

Best,

Hilary

 

Judaic Studies with Margaret

This week in Judaic Studies we studied the life of Hannah Senesh in preparation for our tekes on Wednesday. We learned about Hannah’s childhood in Budapest, Hungary and what life was like for Jews as they faced increasing discrimination in Europe. After her own experiences with antisemitism Hannah chose to learn more about Zionism, study Hebrew, and recruit others into building a Jewish homeland. At 18 Hannah moved to Palestine where she studied at Nahalal, an agricultural school. Though she always dreamed of being a writer like her father, Hannah worked tirelessly at Kibbutz Sdot Yam doing farm work. Hannah felt lonely at the kibbutz. She worried about her family, who were stuck in Europe during the increasingly violent times. Given the uncertainty of her family’s fate and the wave of anti semitism, she volunteered for a covert mission in the hopes of liberating Jews and allies. We learned of her capture by Hungarian police. Hannah wrote poetry from her jail cell. She never gave up her dream of being a writer. Our class completed a venn diagram comparing Hannah’s life to our lives. We were surprised by how many things we had in common!

 

Hebrew with Ilana Swisa

This week the third grade worked on a short story in the workbook about a field trip. The students worked on comprehension, question words, and writing questions to sentences. and they now working on their own paragraph about their field trip. They also practiced verbs and infinitive (to do something).

Shabbat Shalom