Weeks 3 and 4: Monday, September 17th – Friday, September 28th

Hebrew

Dear Parents,

These few days students continued to explore describing things in their world through their senses. Students watched an Israeli TV program about the 5 senses, practiced having conversations in the Shuk describing what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Students also wrote and acted out short skits using the new vocabulary, using both present and past tense.

I wish you all Hag Sameach,

Andreea

Heritage

ELA: The 8th grade has received three different rounds of feedback on their Chosen Essay.  In the coming days they will hand in their final draft and start work on writing a personal narrative while looking at short memoir pieces as models to emulate.

Social Studies: The 8th grade took their quiz on map skills.  In the next two weeks students will learn how to think like historians and begin to study what America was like before the arrival of European explorers.

Judaic Studies

Students read and discussed an aggada (story from the Talmud) about a man who meets Satan on the evening of Yom Kippur. We learned about the figure of Satan in the rabbinic imagination — a character more like a mirror that shows you your worst self than a red devil with horns and a pitchfork! After discussing the aggada, its moral, and its connection to Yom Kippur, students worked in small groups to create puppets for a video retelling of the story. Each artistic choice required an act of literary interpretation: how to depict Satan? How to depict the other characters in the story? The 8th graders were thoughtful and creative, and had a wonderful time investigating this very strange tale!

Chag sameach!

Math

The 8th grade learned about how to manipulate negative exponents and how to represent extremely large and small numbers using scientific notation. We discussed how scientific notation is used in a multitude of professions and specifically in the realm of Nanotechnology. We will be reviewing Unit 1 before the 8th grade takes its first test on Thursday, October 4th. Good luck, 8th grade!

Science

This week in science we continued with the exploration of atoms. We introduced the concept of the periodic table and how the atoms are arranged. This allowed students to continue exploring how the interactions of electrons and protons create the form of the table. Students conducted an activity where they had to piece together a periodic table from cut up parts. Building this table allowed student to talk about the logic behind the design of the periodic table. Later we will continue exploring the periodic table and how molecules are formed from electron interactions.