Voting and Spotlight on Science

Science

The students have been very active scientists the past weeks.  They continue to build science vocabulary and understanding of concepts related to the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases.  Each pair of science partners conducted an experiment with hot and cold water in a closed environment with cups to learn about condensation.  We read the article “A Snowman in July” which exemplified how water can change from solid to liquid to gas to water again, and students identified science words in the text relating to these changes.

The next science experiment on mixing and separating solids was more complicated than previous ones, involving a greater number of steps and materials.  Ask your young scientist about the salt and gravel, and how they mixed and then separated the two items with a sieve they made of mesh, a rubber band, and cup. Following this experiment, students were given the opportunity to create their own solid mixtures.  Each pair chose two solids from an array of items: three types of beans, rice, sand, and salt, and wrote about the properties in terms of shape, texture, and color. Then they excitedly worked with different sieves, filters, and funnels to separate their mixtures.

Through conducting these experiments at school, as well as the homework activity where they made a fruit or vegetable salad, students understood that mixing the solids together did not change the components.  As a final treat, students chose from five edible solids to create a trail mix they enjoyed and gobbled up!

 

Social Studies

In social studies we have been learning about landforms, and have even been creating our own landforms out of various materials in a collaborative art project. However, we took a break from landforms to learn about the mid term elections. Second graders were introduced to new vocabulary words like democracy, candidates, ballot, and many more. We looked at pictures of different voting booths around the United States as well as how the voting machines have changed over time. After reading a story about a young boy who accompanies his parents to vote but wishes he could vote as well, we decided to make a class vote. A tough choice between chocolate chip cookies or Oreos! Simulating a real voting experience, second graders filled out voter registration forms, went into a voting booth, and cast their vote with a ballot. Then, we made our own “I voted” stickers after looking at how various “I voted” stickers have looked in the past. We shared how it felt to vote, why everyone’s vote is allowed to be private, and why it is important to vote.

Ask your child about their class vote and share with them about any experiences you have had voting.

Math

Our new unit in math has focused on bar models, which is a visual way to represent addition and subtraction problems. Second graders have been practicing drawing and using bar models to solve math problems and to represent the 2 parts of a problem and the whole. We will be leaning addition models for joining sets, subtraction models for taking away sets, and comparison models for comparing sets. The second graders picked names, numbers, and toys they each created to make their own unique word problems. They used bar models to solve these problems

At home, create a word problem with your child and try making a bar model to solve it!

Israel: Map Making

We started to make a map of Israel for our classroom. Students were split into four groups: water, mountains, sand, and desert. Each group worked on one geographical feature of the map. This connected nicely with the students study of land forms from Social Studies and Art. Ask your child which part of the map they helped create.

Yahadut: Hannah Senesh

We studied our school’s namesake all week through discussions and watching exerpts from the documentary “Blessed is the Match”. We focused on Hannah’s childhood and the process of her becoming a writer. We also made a page for our siddur with her famous song “Eli, Eli” that we sang with the whole school at the tekes.

Second graders can tell you:

Who did Hannah live with as a child?

Where is she from?

What did she like to do?

What languages did she know?

Where did Hannah move and what did she do there?

How did she get there?

Hebrew: Writing about Hannah Senesh in Hebrew

We read and wrote about Hannah in Hebrew. We learned that she studied Hebrew like we do, and that her famous poem Eli Eli even had a spelling mistake in it! Our Hebrew writing is on display in the hallway for you to see during parent teacher conferences.