September 17: The First Week of 5th Grade

Welcome to Fifth Grade!

We are thrilled to have your children with us for this year! Before we share a little about what has been happening in each subject, please read the important information below:

STUDENTS NEED TO BRING EACH DAY….

• A fully charged Chromebook.
  • Please find a system at home that works for your family. A few suggestions from the class were: sticky note reminders, charge the Chromebook next to or in your backpack, or set an alarm.
• An independent reading book
• An extra mask (or two)
• An easy snack
• A filled water bottle

 

HUMANITIES:

The first week of school is always full of emotions: excitement, nervousness, hope… We’re all readjusting to a school schedule and school mentality. This week, the 5th graders created class agreements. We discussed the difference between a rule and an agreement. Rules are most often made by others and require specific behaviors to be followed or consequences may happen. On the other hand, agreements depend upon the people who create them. They are an understanding and a contract between people. In groups, each section created a new student who we called a ‘5th grade learner.’ By adding parts and labeling their use- ears for listening to each other, a mouth to share ideas, a heart to care for each other- we talked about what is needed to be a successful fifth grader. Using those ideas, we then came up with agreements to help each other be our best selves.

In the coming weeks we will begin our first units. In Reading we will start with the novel Wonder. In Social Studies we will learn how to read maps and then dive into a study of Early Humans. And in Writing we will begin an autobiography project centered around our identity, history, and personal narrative.

L’Shana Tovah,

Sarah

JUDAICS:

My name is Laura Marder. I will be your child’s Judaics and Tefillah teacher as well as a 5th grade adviser. I am so excited to get to know your children and learn together. We will be focusing on the Joseph stories in Chumash, Pre 1948 Israel history and values and text based holiday studies. I am currently in Rabbinical school with Aleph, a renewal ordination program. I am also the spiritual leader of Beloved Brooklyn where I lead weekly Jewish meditation. I love bringing teachings and big topics from my outside of school life into the classroom! We will be using big life questions to drive our learning such as; “How can the circumstances in our lives shape who we are?”” Do intentions matter” and so many more! This year we will also continue work on skill building to become independent learners of text as well as good chevruta’s (learning partners).

This first week we jumped right into learning about the High Holidays. We are focusing on the power of Teshuva (returning to our best selves) Tefillah (prayer) and Tzedakah (bringing justice into the world). Next blog I look forward to sharing pictures of your child doing tashlich, which is the ritual throwing away the heaviness of “missing the mark” so we can move forward with a clean slate and feel good about life lessons.

Please feel free to always reach out with any questions or concerns.

Lmarder@hannahsenesh.org

Shabbat Shalom,

Laura

Math

Hello parents! My name is Katie and I am so excited to be returning to Senesh to teach 5th grade math. This year you can expect your children to come home excited about what they have learned. We will be learning through real life situations, projects, puzzles, and using our creativity on a daily basis. Along with math concepts and skills, we will also be focusing on confidence in the classroom, respect for one another, organization, and putting in our best effort in everything we do. 

Is has been a wonderful week! There were nerves and excitement as your children were welcomed to middle school! This week in math, we got to know each other and the students started their first project. The students learned about different number systems around the world, and then created and analyzed their very own number system! In the next few weeks we will be learning about number properties and numerical expressions. 

Kadams@hannahsenesh.org

– Katie 

Science

Hi everyone! My name is Sammi, it is my fifth year at Senesh, and I am so excited to be teaching 5th-grade science again this year. For many of the students, this is my third year teaching them and therefore we are off to a fast and smooth start! This week, we re-established ourselves as scientists by brainstorming all the things we do that make us scientists and then applying this to a quick, silly art project. Next week we will jump right into our first unit: The Engineering Design Process.

Hebrew Heritage:

להורים שלום,

שמי אילנה ואני מורה לדוברי עברית בסנש כבק קרוב לעשור.

שמחתי מאד לפגוש את ילדיכם ולשמוע על חוויות חופשת הקיץ.

השבוע התחלנו במשחקי היכרות ובסיפור על ״שני חברים טובים״.

בשבוע הבא נתחיל לעבוד על יחידת מבוא שלנו שנקרא ״הסיר של סבתא״.

מאחלת לכם סוף שבוע נעים,

אילנה

Hebrew:

Welcome to the Hebrew class! My name is Yuliya and it will by my third year in Hannah Senesh. We started this year by introducing each other in Hebrew and talking about how the summer was. I was very excited to meet new students and get to know them better during this year. We repeated the rules for verbs in the past tense and prepositions in Hebrew. In addition, we discussed Jewish tradition tashlich after doing it one morning during advisory class. We learn Hebrew language connecting to Jewish tradition and culture.

Please feel free to always reach out with any questions or concerns.

yshifrin@hannahsenesh.org

Chag Sukkot Sameah!