Poetry, Tallit, and Vanishing Points!

Reading and Writing

We have been making many connections between reading and writing as we have began our poetry unit. Second graders began to look at ordinary objects with a poet’s heart and mind. We studied poetry from several authors and noticed that poets make comparisons to help the reader paint a picture in their mind. We listened to poems with our eyes closed, talked about visualization, and of course began writing our very own poems. With bags filled with mysterious objects, we had to reach in and write poems using comparisons. Staple removers became ferocious sharks, paintbrushes became brooms for colors, and listening to a shell became a way to find inner beauty.

Over the weekend, head to the library and check out some poetry books to learn more about how different poets write poetry!

Science

The students were eager to experiment with mixing and separating colors. We did an experiment using a coffee filter, black marker and water. They were surprised to learn that they could separate the black ink into a few colors. Then they did the experiment with a green marker and compared the two. The following class period, students repeated the experiment with vinegar instead of water. They learned that the process of separating colors is called chromatography and enjoyed watching the various transformations happen.

Students then became science detectives and solved a mixture mystery. They correctly identified that it was salt and pepper by putting a small amount on an orange piece of paper and looking with a magnifying glass, as well as smelling it. They put their science know-how into practice by using various ways to separate the mixture: assembling and pouring through a sieve, adding the mixture to water, and filtering with a coffee filter, funnel and empty cup. They also poured the mixture and water in petri dishes and made predictions as to what will happen in a number of days. Thinking back to how their salt and water petri dishes evaporated and made salt crystals, we may find “black crystals” in the near future in the petri dish experiments?! Stay tuned for the results…

Yahadut: Tzitzit and Talit

Students were so excited to learn about and wear tzitzit last week. Nava was so interested in the topic that she asked her parents to buy her her own tallit for home which she started bringing in to class for tfillah. When I saw how interested other students were in Nava’s tallit, I decided to order two tallitot for the class. Students have been so enthusiastic about trying out this new and special ritual object. They are learning how to wear them and how to fold and care for them. An eigth grade student, Sammy, visited our class to show us how to hold and kiss the tztzit during the Shma prayer.

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Art with Iviva

This week, Iviva introduced the concept of point perspective and the vanishing point, an imaginary point in the distance of a landscape where lines converge. Iviva explained that our eyes perceive the vanishing point, but that it doesn’t actually exist, and that the two sides of a road remain parallel, even in the distance.

We studied a drawing Iviva found online of a town with buildings along a road with a vanishing point. Iviva demonstrated how to pick a spot in the background of our paper as the vanishing point, draw a road where both sides meet at the vanishing point, and draw buildings that look three-dimensional. It was hard, and we all (even Iviva) occasionally found the angles confusing, but we enjoyed the challenge. It was a good integration of science and math, and helped us begin to understand that our eyes perceive the world in special ways, and that drawing what we perceive in a landscape is a skill we can practice and learn.