What’s Happening in 5th- 12/11/20
Humanities: We look forward to presenting our latest work to you at our upcoming publishing event on December 17 at 1:00. The fifth graders have been hard at work researching one characteristic of civilization and how that characteristic manifested in Sumer. The students first took notes using a variety of sources and then reviewed their notes and organized them into categories that would translate to body paragraphs in a research essay. Next, they learned how to write an introductory paragraph by hooking the reader with interesting information and creating a thesis statement. Leading up to our publishing event, the students will continue to write and revise their essays in preparation for presenting them to you! Meanwhile, we continue to learn about the empires of Mesopotamia. This week, the students learned about the Code of Hammurabi and reviewed court cases, determining how Hammurabi would have ruled and what they believe a fair ruling would be.
Happy Hanukkah!
Sarah
Judaics: You may have heard your children yelling and laughing and singing this week at home as they took on the character’s of Russian Jews in 1881 making Aliyah. They learned about their characters and “experienced” the hardships of being a Jew in 1881 Russia. They worked in families and a community to support each other and learn what they had to do to make aliyah to Ottoman Empire run Palestine. Once they arrived in The Land of Israel (Palestine) they found even more hardships as they tried to build a new life with little money. Through interactive slides and breakout rooms they learned about what it took to start a new life and began to explore what motivated the olim (people who made aliyah) to work so hard. Below are some photos from a scavenger hunt they did as one of the challenges to find objects that represented their journey. I encourage you to ask your child about their family and what they went through.
We are also working on our Hanukkah unit. This year students are focusing on the idea of miracles and after researching sources from prayers, historic text and the Talmud, they will debate which Hanukkah Miracle needs to be emphasized this year. This “Great Nes (Miracle) Debate” has happened for the last 6 years and I am so happy that though we can’t all crowd into one room for it, we can use zoom! I will be sending a Hanukkah family source sheet next week so you can have the debate with your child at home.
Shabbat Shalom and wishing you all a light filled Hanukkah,
Laura
Hebrew Heritage:
We are continuing to learn about famous Israeli politicians. We learned about the life of Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and David Ben Gurion. In order to encourage students to learn new vocabulary and use it I asked them to prepare a slideshow to visualize the text. They did a great job and presented their projects in small groups. Students learned new facts about the Israeli history through the life stories of these people. Also we have been practicing to conjugate verbs belonging to the 5 main groups of the verb in the past tense, and use several common verbs from each of the groups in speech and writing.
Best wishes,
Yuliya
Science
The 5th-grade scientists are currently in an engineering/physics of flight unit. Over the last two weeks, students worked through an online simulation on Explore Learning that allows them to drop different objects from the top of a tower. There are options to have air or a vacuum, options in height, and an option to add a parachute to an object. Through this simulation, students learned that all objects fall at the same rate of acceleration in a vacuum. Students also learned that when air is present, the two key components in acceleration are air resistance and weight. Through all the recent work, the 5th graders are taking ownership of a few key vocabulary words: air resistance, gravity, terminal velocity, vacuum, acceleration, and free fall. Feel free to ask them at home to describe these words to you! Vocabulary quiz to come in January. Next up for your engineers?…. Parachutes!
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