Naomi Stein

As we continue to explore the fantasy genre, we read the story Jack and the Beanstalk, and discovered that there can be different versions of stories we read. In fact, many of us were already familiar with this book! We remembered that the main character, Jack, traded his cow for some magic beans. We knew that the beans would grow a magic beanstalk all the way up to the clouds, and we anxiously prepared ourselves for Jack to meet the “scary” giant. However; we were pleasantly surprised when the giant (ogre in this story) was actually not so scary! In fact, he was sad that Jack was trying to steal his hen that laid the golden eggs, his bags of gold, and his golden harp. Together, Jack and the ogre problem solved and peacefully decided that the ogre would lend Jack the golden harp, hen, and he could take half of the gold. Many of us decided that we preferred this version of the story!

Amazing Vocabulary Words

(Jack and the Beanstalk)

• ogre
• beanstalk
• lad
• naughty
• lend
• magic

Connecting to this story, the children created pictures of beanstalks using various materials including, craft sticks, pom poms, paint, glitter, tissue paper, construction paper, straws, and more!

Afterwards, they wrote about what they would find at the top of their beanstalks. Here are some of their ideas:

At the top of my beanstalk there is/are…

• A golden crocodile
• A bunch of Legos
• Pokemon
• A candy house
• A club house
• A Snugglephant
• Star Wars
• Treasure
• Sadie (my dog)

We also planted “Magic Beans” which we will observe over a period of two weeks. Each day, the children will document their observations on note cards and by the end of the two weeks, they will have a beanstalk flip book displaying the growth process.

In math, we practiced using nonstandard units of measure by finding the length of various pieces of tape. The children used markers, craft sicks, paper clips, cubes etc. and discovered that they needed less of the larger objects and more of the smaller objects when determining the length.

Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring temperature, snow, and ice. We will be conducting various experiments; however, to help us get into the “wintry mood,” we made our own FNOW! (fake snow)

Ingredients:

• Baking soda
• White hair conditioner

Mix three cups of baking soda to 1/2 cup of hair conditioner.

The FNOW felt cool, damp, and soft like real snow! We even made FNOWballs!

Snowball Sight Word Game

Sight words:

• I
• am
• the
• little
• a
• is
• to
• have
• we
• my
• like
• for
• he
• she
• with
• me

We played another game to help us identify sight words. First, the children each wrote their name on a piece of white paper, and crumpled the paper into a “snowball.” Then we selected one of our sight words to be the “sight word snowball.” We flipped over different cards until we came to the chosen word. Once that card was flipped over, the children threw their snowballs into the middle of the circle. Afterwards, they each selected a random snowball, smoothed out the paper, read the name, and sat in the spot of that classmate for the following round.

Math Jumping

Another game that we have been enjoying is our addition and subtraction jumping game. Not only does this game allow the us to practice math skills, it is also a fantastic way to get up, move our bodies, and get our wiggles out! Each child stands in their place and listens to the directions.

“Jump 9 plus 2 times.”

“Jump 8 plus 3 times.”

“Jump 12 take away 1 times.”

We take some time to talk about what we notice:

“These are all ways to make eleven!”

At times the children like “tricky” ones:

“Jump 5 plus 5 times.”

“Jump 9 plus 1 times.”

“Jump 10 take away 10 times.”

Oftentimes, this last direction can be confusing similar to way the Simon Says can be tricky. Your body is so used to jumping, that it automatically starts moving. The key is to listen carefully to the problem. We have a great time with this activity!

Vowel/Consonant Game

We start by standing in a circle and each child says a letter in alphabetical order. When someone gets a vowel, they need to sit down. We go around and around, until we have “one consonant standing.” Everyone in the class says, “mazel tov!” to the winner, who then responds, “thank you.” Not only does this game allow the children to differentiate between consonants and vowels, it also gives them the opportunity to practice good sportsmanship.

Hebrew

While we were learning the letter chet, we used  different materials!  We had fun making  a chalon(window). The children chose to have their  chalon (window) open for different objects that begin with the letter  chet – like a chanukiyah (menorah for Chanukah),  chatool (cat), and  challah. We also baked challa with Hepzibah.

After months of waiting and doing the research necessary to understand the process, know the porportions of materials and collecting the necessary materials like the milk cartons, the 5th graders finally had the opportunity to make the bricks.  Excitement was in the air as we set up the tarps and carried in the heavy bags of clay, cement and sand.  From that moment on, the students had a sense that this was not going to be that easy.  As part of the process, they were asked to write reflections before the activity. They all commented on how they thought it would be fun and hard at first, but that it would get easier and that it would be messy.  Afterwards, they again reflected on whether the experience surprised them and what were some of the thngs that they learned.  One student commented that it was “way, way, way harder,” while another one wrote, “This experience left me thinking about how terrible ti would be to have to do that for 8-10 hours a day, six days a week for your whole life.”  The students quickly became covered in clay but they did an amazing job of focusing on the task and then, making sure that they cleaned the area and themselves up completely before returning to the classroom.  One of the things that we learned was that, even with our planning and measuring beforehand, we did not judge the porportions correctly and so, we ran out of the cement and sand much sooner than expected.  Unfortunately, that meant that we were not able to make all the bricks that we had hoped to construct and only completed making 23 bricks.  However, Mrs. Woods and Rabbi Gouze will talk about how we might be able to reschedule another day in order to finish the rest of them.  It was clear that the students not only learned from this experience but it was definitely one from which they enjoyed and gained a lot.