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What’s Happening in 5th 11-13-20

Humanities: 

ELA: During our ELA classes, we have been focused on getting book clubs off and running. The class has been divided into groups of three or four with each group assigned a book to read and discuss together. The goal of these book clubs is to track character traits, actions, and motivations and to use that information to extrapolate themes from the book. So far, the clubs have met twice and have created a reading schedule that will allow them to finish their book by Thanksgiving. During book club meetings, the clubs discuss the reading from the prior week, answer questions about their books, share ideas, and set out reading goals for themselves. In class, we continue to read Home of the Brave as our mentor text to model and practice the types of conversations they are having within their clubs.

Social Studies: We are finishing up our Early Humans playlist. The students all did a great job working through several assignments where they learned about the evolution of early humans (hominins) from Australopithecine to Homo sapiens. We learned about the discovery of Lucy, the earliest human ancestor known at the time of her finding and how anthropologists have discovered several species of hominins but the question still remains who our most recent ancestors are. The students also explored the importance of evolutionary events such as becoming bipedal, learning to create and manage fire, and creating and using tools. We also tracked the discovery of various hominin fossils to see how early humans developed and then migrated out of Africa to eventually inhabit all seven continents. Next, we will move into our study of the first civilizations in Mesopotamia.

Hebrew Heritage

להורים שלום,

כחלק מהערכים של בית הספר של חשיבות העשיה למען הזולת למדנו סיפור קצר בשם ״הסיר של סבתא מרים״ המבוסס המתאר כיצד מעשה טוב אחד של סבתא יכול לעשות טוב לקהילה שלמה. במסגרת זו התלמידים למדו אוצר מילים חדש וקראו טקסטים נוספים הקשורים למשמעות ״מעשה טוב״, כמו כן האזינו לשירה הקסום של נורית גלרון ״מילה טובה״. שוחחנו על החשיבות הערכית של עזרה לזולת ועל נדיבות ואדיבות כלפי חברינו ובני משפחתנו.

אילנה

Judaics:

We have been working hard on our Chumash text skills. Students are studying from Bereshit 37 and learning how to translate and recognize new Biblical grammar concepts. They have used their modern Hebrew to help understand the Biblical grammar structures. Students are also using Quizlet to learn key vocabulary and phrases that will help them closely translate the Torah text. Quizlet can be found on the Judaics Google classroom and should be studied 10 minutes twice a week. We have also been looking at how asking text based questions can open deeper meanings and understandings of our story.

We have also been learning about Hannah Senesh through the movie “Blessed is the Match”. It can be found on Amazon Prime if you would like to watch it. Students were very reflective about Hannah’s life and how important it is to have something to believe like she did. We discussed how beliefs can motivate action and perseverance. We will be using Hannah’s story to transition into our Pre-1948 Zionism unit.

We are continuing our routines of learning Torah trope on Mondays, looking more deeply at specific prayers on Tuesdays and having a full service on Wednesday and Thursday.

This week we also began our partnership with the Brooklyn Autism Center. More details on what your children will be doing with their friends at the BAC next time!

Shabbat Shalom,

Laura

Hebrew:

This month we focused on learning past tense in Hebrew. Students could use the past tense form in sentences and recognize it in texts and stories. During the class in person we worked more on speaking and listening skills and during remote days we practiced more reading and writing skills.
We learned about famous jewish baseball player Hank Grinberg. The students got acquainted with new facts about his biography, his career and his jewish identity.
This month we got to know about Yitzhak Rabin. The students had an opportunity to tell about his biography in Hebrew.
Both in person and on zoom we continued using different ways to learn Hebrew such as quizlet and quizzes.