October 15: And We’re Off!

Judaics: 

In Judaics we have learned our routine of beginning class with a Mindful Minute and then singing our blessing for studying Torah. We took some time to really study the blessing that we will say each day and thinking about how our translation also showed our interpretation. I am so excited that we are diving into the Joseph stories in Chumash. We will be working on some grammar skills that will help us unlock some important details in the text. We will also think about how this story relates to our own experience in life. From the start, Genesis 42, we see that Joseph’s father Jacob is favoriting his son and this is causing some drama between the brothers. This is a similar pattern to Jacob’s own childhood. We are discussing the school value of Masa, Journey, and how we can learn from our past experiences in order to not repeat mistakes or difficult patterns. Students are also working on the skill of working with a chevruta (learning partner). There will always be study material on google classroom in the form of Blooket games. Students should study from these sets at least once a week for 15 minutes at home.

Shabbat Shalom,

Laura

Humanities:

As the title of the post says, we’re off! It feels good to have full weeks of school and actually finish something we start! A few notes:

• All assignments, homework, and information for upcoming assessments are posted on Google Classroom. Although as a guardian you only get a summary email each week, please feel free to ask your students to see their Google Classroom if you’d like to check on their work, homework, or help them study for assessments.
• If there is no assigned reading homework, students are expected to read for 20 minutes

Onto the material…

In reading, we are well into Wonder. As we read, we are practicing using the text as evidence to support answers to reading comprehension and inferential questions. Using “thought prompts” such as “for example…,” “this shows…, “this makes me think…,” students are strengthening their writing skills while learning to read deeply.

In social studies, we started our unit on Early Humans. Ask your child about australopithecine, the oldest known human ancestor, and what it means to be bipedal.

In writing, we are starting our memoir project. The students created identity charts, marking the things that make them them. We talked about how identity is a mix of things you are born with, likes/dislikes and evolving ideas of yourself. They then reflected on the aspects of their identity that feel most important to them right now. Next week, we will begin a personal narrative sharing the meaning of our names. Look out for some homework that will involve an interview with you!

Math

We are off and rolling….We have made it halfway through our first unit and have had our first quiz. The students have been doing a great job of challenging themselves and working together to problem solve. This past week, we have covered multiplication with multi-digit numbers and relating that to the distributive property. Students have been really pushing themselves to think outside the box as they are working together to solve a variety of problems. Need some extra practice? I have added a new section on Google Classroom called Chapter 1: Extra Practice/Extensions. In this section, you can find video tutorials, extra practice with answers to check their work, and enrichment problems. I encourage all students to dive deep into what they find challenging. Coming up next week will be evaluating numerical expressions and using parentheses/brackets. I am looking forward to keeping everyone’s confidence and enthusiasm up!

Hebrew Heritage

הורים שלום,

השבוע עבדנו על היחידה ״הסיר של סבתא מרים״, קראנו טקסט המספר על סבתא מרים אשר אהבה לשמח אחרים באמצעות מאכלים שונים שהייתה מכינה, כמו כן מדי בוקר הנכדים שלה היו עוזרים בהכנת ״סיר כל טוב״ שהיה משמש ארוחה לכל הנזקקים בשכונה.

התלמידים קראו את הטקסט, עבדו על אוצר מילים, הכינו הצגה כפרויקט סיום והכי חשוב שיתפו מתכון של סבתא/סבא אהוב שלהם.

מאחלת לכם סוף שבוע נפלא,

אילנה

Science with Sammi

Sorry if there have been cotton balls flying around your house this week! The 5th grader scientists have completed their first engineering design project, catapults. These catapults had to be free standing and the constraints were that they could only use 20 popsicle sticks and 10 rubber bands. Through careful design, testing, reimagining, and rebuilding, students learned that engineering is quite challenging. Unfortunately, rubber bands and popsicle sticks don’t always cooperate in the way you want them to! As a fun reward for persevering through their first project, we ended the project with pumpkin catapult games. Students competed to see whose catapults could launch a candy pumpkin the highest, through a hoop, into a target, into a bucket, and whose could knock down a set of cups. More engineering related to the physics of flight to come!

Hebrew with Yuliya