Emily Dennen - Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island

September Updates

October 20, 2016October 20, 2016 by Emily Dennen

Throughout the school year, 5th graders will take on the responsibility of updating the class blog with information they want to share with the wider world. The students are responsible for deciding what to share, creating the text, and capturing images that help tell the story of our classroom. The 5th grade is also working on taking and using feedback, and would love to read your comments and suggestions for our next post. Please enjoy the post below–the first post written by 5th graders this year!
Thank you!
Ms. D and the 5th grade
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Welcome to the fifth grade blog!
Every week Rabbi Gouze tells us a riddle. This week the one she gave us was:

I am at the beginning of every end
The end of every place
I am the beginning of eternity
The end of time and space
What am I?

Check next time for the answer and a new riddle!!! Leave a comment if you think you know the answer!

Another thing we do every week with Rabbi Gouze is Parshat Hashavua, which means weekly Torah portion. Rabbi Gouze combines the weekly Torah portion in English and Hebrew with a short summary, and puts it on a piece of paper, which she gives to fifth grade. Then we write about our opinions and interpretations of the Parshah and hang our writing in the classroom. Then we read each other’s opinions and decide if we agree or disagree. Earlier in September, the Parshah was about B’nai Yisrael and how we are The Chosen Ones. We had to give our opinions about whether we think we are the chosen ones or not. We learned our ancestors were promised that they and their seed would be chosen forever, and we learned that we are the seeds. Take a look at some of our ideas!

In Design Lab, we have been working on a kippah project. We have been working on this because we noticed that many people are forgetting, losing, or choosing not to wear their kippot because it makes them uncomfortable. One group is making a kippah wheel to help people make better choices about their kippot. The other group is writing jingles to share over the intercom system to remind people when and why they should wear kippot. Here is one of our ideas:

“Wear your kippah on through and through.
That’s what G-d wants us to do!
Put your kippah on your head
for lunch and prayers, but not in bed!”

Another thing we did this month was work on making analogies for Freedom. We learned that analogies are when you combine two things that are different in lots of ways, but are similar in a couple of important ways. We wrote and created pictures that explain our analogies, and we got feedback from our classmates to help us make lots of drafts that got better each time. We also wrote reflections about the project. Here are a couple examples of rough drafts! Our finished projects are posted at school.

Full STEAM Ahead

March 7, 2016March 7, 2016 by Emily Dennen

On Friday, March 4th, the fourth grade class visited the studio of Rhode Island based artist Donald Gerola. His sculptures can be seen in various locations around Providence and around the world! We were given the unique opportunity to see where he creates and learn more about his style. We explored his amazing steel sculptures (some of which are over 30 feet tall!!), his prototypes, and paintings made with mixtures of sand, pigment, and natural materials. It was affirming to see that “real artists” use some of the same strategies we use when creating. Just like us, Mr. Gerola makes models and plans for his work, shares his ideas with other people, and works in collaboration with others to bring his ideas to life.

It was such a privilege to spend the morning with Donald, and we are so grateful that he opened his studio to us!

A Whale of a Time

January 26, 2016 by Emily Dennen

Fourth Graders just completed an in depth study on whales! Students learned a bit about several species of whales, and then each of them chose one to research and present to their peers and families. Using online and print sources, these students became experts on their chosen whales!

To really bring our study to life, we decided to create scale models of these creatures and hang them in our classroom. After measuring out the true length of each whale, students used division to create a scale by which they would design and create their models. Their research helped them decide which features to highlight and include as they created their pieces in art class.

Their whales will hang in our classroom for the next several weeks as we begin thinking about why so many whales are now endangered. This question has led us to a study of the history of whaling in New England, and we are continuing to learn under the shadows of these majestic mammals.

4th Grade Rules!

October 1, 2015September 28, 2015 by Emily Dennen

We did it! This week, fourth graders finished creating the rules that will help our community work this year! The students took on an intensive process to create rules that would keep them safe and give them the freedom to learn. Before we began our work, we talked about the role of rules and guidelines in our world. Many students shared that rules help keep our bodies and our feelings cared for and safe. We thought about rules we’ve had in the past, rules we’ve liked, and rules we think are important (even if we don’t like them) and brainstormed a long list.

We decided that such a large number of rules isn’t useful. How will we remember what we should do if we can’t remember all of our rules? To narrow down our choices, each student picked one or two “most important” rules, and we charted our ideas again.

This was still too many for us to remember! We also noticed that many started with “No” and “Don’t”. We talked about how telling someone not to do something can make someone want to do that thing even more. We also talked about the importance of a positive attitude and decided we wanted rules that reflected our desire to “look on the bright side of life”. We talked about how we might flip this language to make it more positive. After we changed our wording, students picked their most important rules for the last time and charted again!

We noticed that many people picked the same rules, which told us that our community valued these ideas, like respecting others and staying calm. We also noticed a theme of respect running through many of the suggested rules. After another conversation we synthesized our ideas and crossed out the duplicates. This got us so much closer to our final list! When we had five or six clearly worded ideas, we took a vote.

For a rule to pass the vote it had to be approved by every member of our kehilah (community). The rules you see below were approved by every 4th grader. Each student was asked to read the rules below out loud with the group. Then we all took two minutes to think about the words we were saying and the promise we were about to make. When we were ready to commit ourselves to upholding these rules, we each signed our names as a sign of our promise. I am glad to say that every 4th grader has promised to promote the guidelines they created for the community we are forming together.

This was not an easy or a quick process, but the reflection and conversation that came out of this process is invaluable. We hope that we will find that our rules matter more to us because they were written by us and for us. We hope our rules will feel clear, relevant, and will help us feel safe and loved in our classroom.