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Class of 2018 (5th grade)

Kindergarten Presents…4th Grade Buddies!

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Last week the Kindergarten class got to have their first meeting with our awesome 4th grade buddies from Ms. Silva’s class! The buddies will now be joining us every Monday after lunch and spend our “rest time” with us. This is a wonderful opportunity for the buddies to read, write and relax together. Kindergarten is very excited that we just started reading the “Magic Tree House” series and will be starting a project to fill our own “tree house” (the loft) with magical books that we will write with the help of our amazing buddies. We hope to continue making wonderful memories with our buddies and inviting them to participate in some fun Autumn science experiments as the month progresses.

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Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece

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Greek play

play2Our last big project this year was learning about ancient Greece, a subject close to my heart. I was able to go to Greece and visit the ancient ruins when I was younger. This trip interested me in learning more about the ancient culture. Then a few years ago, I had a chance to teach a whole unit on ancient Greece. I brought this knowledge to JCDSRI for a fun project on this fascinating culture.

We started by reading many Greek myths and nonfiction books about ancient Greece. The students were so interested in the topic and were eager to find out more! Then we turned our knowledge into two amazing projects. First, we performed two popular myths as a play, along with costumes and props. The third graders made them entirely themselves, after conducting extensive research to make sure they were accurate! Then we wroteplay1 our own myths inspired by the ancient Greek myths. We explained everything from guinea pigs to dogs and cats to forests.

The day of our performance came quickly. The third graders were buzzing with excitement, so eager to share their hard work with the world! They gave a beautiful show. All their parts were memorized, even though they each had more than one part. Our Narcissunarcissuss was silly and full of himself, and our Echo was a super talkative nymph. The gods were strong and demanding, and Pandora realized she made a big mistake in opening the box. Everyone complimented them on their expression and acting ability. It was the perfect way to end our year.

 

Making Fractions Fun!

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Many students have anxiety around fractions. We use so many whole numbers in math that the idea of splitting them up can be scary. But the third graders have rocked our first look at fractions!

We started with a project called Fair Share. We started off with sharing one brownie with a group of friends. We used paper 6e716943-d2aa-42a8-9d17-0330c6653cd0brownies to actually cut up the brownie in many different ways. We realized that if we share with 2 people, we split our brownies in half. We also realized that we can cut something in half different ways, but still have equal parts. We kept going by sharing that one brownie with 3, 4, 6, and 8 friends.

 

Then we kicked it up a notch by sharing multiple brownies. We first tried to share seven brownies with four friends. Many groups found multiple ways to share them, some with proper fractions and some with impro2f160d0f-0b76-47fe-8406-f7765b62cff0per. This investigation opened up many discussions about math, and everyone shares their own ways of dividing and making fractions.

Last, to celebrate, we had to make REAL brownies, of course! We enjoyed making them, measuring, pouring, mixing, and finally splitting them up to share with our real friends, too.

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Songs for Zimriyah 2016!

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Here is a playlist of the songs for Zimriyah this year in case students and families want to practice at home!

 

All School: Shiru Shir, Shir Hachodashim, Rabbi Akiva, Nerot Shel Ahava, Mishe, Echad Mi Yode’a, Yom Huledet

Grades Pre-K, K, 1, 2: Basukkah shelanu, Shana Tova, Hashkediya Porachat, Letsan Katan

Grades 3,4,5:  Bashana haba-a, Sukkat Shalom, Ki Tavou,

Alumni song: Yesh Li Chag

Rhode Island: Warmer and Cooler?

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Third grade has learned so much about our own state of Rhode Island this year! From geography, to government, to people, to the Jewish history of our state, we have really become experts! We are now putting that kno59d0f2c2-3a53-4b5a-bcd0-dbdb5e6a1187wledge to good use by creating travel brochures about Rhode Island. As a bonus, we have a real audience to whom to present these; they will be used as centerpieces at a conference at Brown University. This motivated the students even more to create the most interesting and accurate brochures. As a challenge, they designed their own Rhode Island logos for the front covers of the travel brochures, to replace the controversial “Warmer and Cooler” design.

 

We brainstormed all we learned abo5af46ee8-f6c9-4ddd-b479-e276d10204e2ut Rhode Island and researched even more to find out new things we were interested in. Then we went to work actually creating our brochures. I loved how unique each one was, from concentrating on the Rhode Island Red hen to the Pawsox, Del’s Lemonade, and coffee milk, each student included his or her own personality and joys of this state in his or her brochures! We had “experts”, the fifth graders, come in to critique our work, since they have 6f1b60c8-269c-4cc8-b41d-edb7bd83d326already learned about Rhode Island.

 

Now our brochures are ready for the public. The students are very excited to be able to have them on display at Brown, but are sad to give them up. I don’t blame them after all the hard work they put into this project!

 

 

Welcome to the Shark Tank

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For students in grades 3-5, the design lab has been transformed into a Shark Tank. The TV show Shark Tank, regularly aired on ABC, inspired me to challenge students to create something worth selling and that would convince sharks to invest in. While many students created prototypes, others, like Ezra, were billionaire investors (aka “sharks”). Ezra took it upon himself to interview the designers in his class in order to get an idea of their products, past sales, current locations, offers, and valuations prior to their pitches.

The following video is brought to you by students in the fourth and fifth grade. Cooper is pitching his product, Your Home Security. Welcome to the Shark Tank!

STEAM Week in 3rd Grade

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For third grade, STEAM week was an exciting time! We had many exciting workshops, from superhero animals to math magic. But STEAM reached into our every day math, reading, and writing in the class. Inspired by our favorite read aloud, Poppy by Avi, our class had an interest in owls. One of the main characters, Mr. Ocax, was a great horned owl and the things he was able to do were fascinating. So we embarked on a research project to learn more about these fascinating animals.

We started by learning about the different adaptations owls have, such as being able to turn their heads almost completely arphoto 1ound. Small groups researched a specific owl to find out more about the amazing adaptations they have. We discovered they are perfect hunters, and made posters to demonstrate our knowledge. We will be collaborating with the second grade to teach them about our findings.

Next we wrote poetry about owls. We used facts we found and studied other poems to get an idea for our own poems. We made these extra special by placing them on paper bag owls we made. We then uphoto 4 (1)sed our paper bag owl puppets to teach Pre-K all about owls. This turned into drawing owls, making owl perches out of blocks, and showing the Pre-K how owls hunt using the stuffed animals in the room!

Lastly, and in my opinion the most fun, we dissected owl pellets. Even though it seemed gross to many, everyone dug in, and found skulls, leg bones, and teeth! We reconstructed skeletons of their unfortunate victims to display.

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Third Grade Students Produce Music Video

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Our Third Graders produced this wonderful music video highlighting the 5 times table. We applaud their enthusiasm and creativity! Their teacher, Kareesh Bour, also left them a special surprise message at the end of the video (with a little help from her son!), so you may want to watch through to the very end.

[su_vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/158481664″]

Rhode Island History Come Alive!

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The third graders have been busy learning about the founding of our state, Rhode Island. After reading and writing about it, we took the bus to see the places we read about. Our first stop was the State House in Providence where we saw th6ca4e1bc-b645-44aa-b3d7-61683f8743a2e actual charter they used to establish the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Along with the charter, we saw some artifacts from Roger Williams’ time, including a book he wrote himself.

Next stop was the Roger Williams Memorial Park down the street to see the well Roger Williams used to found Providence. After m0733e33b-ce5d-4021-baf2-e32002e7a660arveling at how small it seemed, we went to the visitor center where we were able to see another book Roger Williams wrote. This book was about Native American languages. We also saw paintings depicting Native Americans and Providence in 1636. Everyone agreed it was an interesting and exciting field trip. We are eagerly awaiting a representative from the National Park Service to come visit our class and teach us more about Roger Williams.

 

Field Trips With a Purpose

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The third grade class went on two field trips this month. The purpose was for them to learn more about the Narragansett Bay and the ocean life in the Bay. We will be turning our learning into a class nonfiction book along with producing projects of the students’ choosing.
The first trip was to the Biomes Center. There they were able to participate in a scavenger hunt, touch some sharks and skates, and pick an animal they would like to research further. All the students had a great time and were able to speak with volunteers who helped us learn more. One student learned that flounder start off in life more like regular fish and flatten out when they get older! Also, they have a special adaptation to change colors to match the sand on the ocean floor. Three of the boys in our class won shark tooth necklaces by completing the scavenger hunt.
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The second trip was to the URI Bay Campus. We first heard about the life cycles within our Bay and the importance of eel bed grasses to our Bay’s ecosystem. Then we went to the student aquarium where students showed us some of the experiments they are conducting. We saw baby lobsters, tanks full of skates (which they were feeding), a very energetic dogfish shark, and a rare blue lobster.