We are so excited about our upcoming trip to Casey Farm! In preparation for our visit to this family-owned organic farm, we talked this week about some of the vegetables that are harvested directly from the ground, including onions, potatoes, beets, and carrots. We then read one of our favorite books, The Carrot Seed.

     

Inspired by this story of a child, a seed, and the power of love and optimism (and the yummy-ness of carrots, of course!) we decided to peel carrots.

 

Laurie taught us how to use the sharp peelers with care.

We noted that in order to peel our carrots, we needed to hone our hand-eye coordination and our fine-motor skills.

Afterward we ate our carrots (“they were so yummy!” exclaimed one student. “Yes! Yes!” replied everyone else).

Our time in the JCDSRI garden with our gardening guru, Mrs. Woods, has also sparked our curiosity about plants, farming, and how we might care for the earth. During our time with Mrs. Woods last week, we picked and tasted kale, tomatoes, and mint.

We also talked about the adamah (the earth) and how it helps us . . . and how we can help it! Next week, as we prepare for the harvest festival of Sukkot, we will spend even more time in the school garden!

This week, in preparation for Yom Kippur, we have been hearing the story of Yonah (Jonah) and the dag gadol (the big fish). This story of teshuvah (repentence), forgiveness, and mercy is read during the afternoon of Yom Kippur. Our kehillah wanted to share with you this story . . . in our own words!

*   *   *   *   *

Once upon a time, there was a man named Yonah. “He was a good person,” explained Nathan. “He helped people,” added Shira. “And he was saving people!” exclaimed Zemer. “Yonah showed kavod to people. And peace!” declared Millie and Sabine.

 

Every morning, Yonah got on a camel and went to work. One morning, he heard God’s voice say “Yonah!” Aeden said, “Hashem asked Yonah to do something.” “To go to another country,” continued Sabine. “The country where people didn’t show kavod to the kids or anything!” explained Leo. “Yeah!” said Nathan. “They don’t help people and they fight.” But Yonah didn’t want to go to this land. He was too scared to go!

 *   *   *   *   *

So Yonah tried to run away. He went on a boat, but when they were sailing there was a big storm! Leo said, “Yonah wanted them to throw him in the water because the storm will stop then if he went in the water.” “Because Yonah didn’t listen to Hashem so there was a storm,” explained Adrian. “Hashem made the storm because Hashem wanted that Yonah will think again,” said Ilan. “Yonah should help the people in the kingdom to behave better.” And the minute the sailors tossed Yonah into the water, the storm stopped!

 *   *   *   *   *

Yonah swam and swam. He kept looking for dry land. Suddenly, a dag gadol (a big fish) came up and swallowed him! “Yonah had tried to trick God by trying to hide from him,” explained Bentzi. “Yonah started crying and got squished!” Asher declared. “Yonah said ‘Please take me out!’” Millie explained. “‘I promise I will listen to you, Hashem.’” With Jonah in his belly, the dag gadol felt sick and had a stomachache. Finally, he spit Yonah out! We all decided that the first thing he wanted to do when he got home was to take a shower. “Because he was so slimy,” Aeden explained. “And he was crying,” said Asher.

 

After he got home, Yonah decided that he actually needed to listen to God and go to the country where people aren’t doing good things. “Even though I don’t want to, it’s the right thing to do. I need to tell them to make good choices,” he thought.

 *   *   *   *   *

When Yonah got to the country, he met with the king and explained that the people weren’t acting kindly and that they needed to help each other. “They need to show hesed,” said Sabine. Millie agreed, “The people need to be peaceful!” “And show kavod!” added Zemer and Aeden.

*   *   *   *   *

Ilana asked: “What we would do to help the people be kinder to each other, if we were Yonah?” “I would be nice to them, and then they would be nice to each other,” said Leo. “They could come to school and learn how to be nice to each other,” declared Nathan. “They should go to our school and learn to be nice. They would know by learning,” explained Shira.

*   *   *   *   *

The king listened to Yonah and traveled around his country, trying to convince the people to be kind. And Yonah also went throughout the country, teaching people to listen to God “and told the people they should show kavod to everybody,” explained Bentzi.

*   *   *   *   *

And over time, the people started showing kavod (respect), hesed (kindness), a’hava (love), and shalom (peace) to each other. “That makes us happy!” said Leo. “They learned that mistakes are good if they learn from them. Like us!” exclaimed Aeden and Adrian.

Where can you find a little red house with no doors, no windows, a chimney and a star inside?

That was the question that the main character in the story, The Little Red House was trying to answer. The little boy searched far and wide until the wind led him to an orchard. Upon his arrival, the strong wind blew and an apple fell off of a tree and landed next to the boy’s shoe. The child took the apple back home to his mother. Together, they cut the apple in half horizontally and discovered a beautiful star!

As a class, we selected a Red Delicious apple. We observed the smooth surface and decided that the brown stem could be the “chimney” from the story. We sliced through the apple horizontally and we also discovered a star!

We took our apple slices and the created apple paintings. The children enjoyed mixing colors, tracing apples, counting apple seeds, and making various prints.

We also enjoyed apple tasting and graphing our results! The children tasted Red Delicious and Gala apples. Using their sense of taste, they made various observations (“It’s sweet like honey!”) and decided which apple they preferred. Afterwards, the children illustrated pictures of their chosen apple, which they cut out and taped to a large apple-shaped graph. We counted a total of nine apples. Six children preferred the Red Delicious apple, and three chose the Gala. By matching the Gala apple drawings to the Red Delicious drawings, we discovered that three more people preferred Red Delicious to Gala.

We loved welcoming Gaby Rothman to our classroom last week! She read such a beautiful story about honesty. Thank you Gaby! 

Our learning expedition to Dame Farm and Orchards was amazing! We enjoyed taking a wagon ride around the farm and picking our own apples. Thank you to Marni Thompson-Tilove and Talya Benoff, for accompanying us on this trip!

 

In addition to our apple exploration, we are continuing to work on our I Am books. This week, the children will read their books to one another during our Reader’s Share.

We learned a special trick to help us count the syllables in different words:

1. Take your hand and place it underneath your chin.

2. Say the word.

3. Count the number of times your chin touches your hand. This will determine the number of syllables in the word!

In science we discovered how to create bouncy balls! First, we poured some glue into a bowl. Then we added a spoonful of Borax and mixed the two ingredients together. We added food coloring to the concoctions, which we then formed into the shape of ball. This was a multi-sensory activity, and the children used their senses to make the following observations:

• The glue feels sticky
• The Borax is bumpy like sand
• When you squeeze it next to your ear, the bigger ball makes a louder sound
• The colors are mixing together
• It’s bouncy 
• It doesn’t have a smell

How can you determine whether a number is odd or even if the the number is too big to count out “buddies?”

We explored this question by thinking about the number 29. We learned that the last digit in any given number will make that number even or odd. We agreed that because the number 9 is odd, that makes the number 29 odd. We continued exploring this concept with additional numbers including 0, 55, 102, 117, etc.

We’ve also been practicing skip-counting! Today, we practiced counting our straws by twos, and we discovered that tomorrow, we will be able to make our second bundle of ten. The children decided that we should count the bundles of ten by tens to save time.

From Mrs. Woods:

As I reflect on the start of our school year together, as we enter the new year, I am struck by the thoughtfulness and beauty inside each fifth grader.

Last week we thought and talked about the concept of loving ourselves.  We always hear that we should treat our neighbors as we want to be treated.  What if we treated ourselves as kindly as we treat others?  What does this mean in terms of what we tell ourselves as we begin a test?  Would we tell a friend to think that she or he would do poorly on a test?  How might we treat ourselves with love in the context of our school work?  Fifth graders practiced doing meditation breaths and positive affirmations before their first math test.  They all rocked the test, demonstrating their understanding of the math concepts and their ability to carefully check over their work.  Our brains are so very powerful, and when we actually believe in ourselves we always do better.

This week’s first morning meeting we did an activity that highlighted that there are many times when we each feel we can’t do something.  At the same time, we all believe in each other.  What would life in 5th grade feel like if we believed in ourselves more?  What if we didn’t say, feel, or think, “I can’t”?  This week the mirror reminds us to think, “Yes, I can!”

Yesterday we each wrote “I can’t” on a piece of paper.

Then we went to our garden plot and literally buried “I can’t”.

 May 5775 be a year filled with fifth graders believing in themselves.  We will learn and grow so much this year with our “I can do it” attitudes.

Shana Tovah! Happy New Year!

First Stop: Video News 

Student Blogger:

“This week we wrote a Biopoem. A Biopoem is a poem where you write all about you.” – Eli

Student Book Reviewer:

“I read the book, Bone.  It’s a very good book.  It has the amount of pages as a chapter book but the pictures are like a picture book.  It’s perfect for grades 2-3.” – Ronan

From Mrs. Guttin…

We had such a fabulous week of learning that I was so involved, and forgot to take a lot of pictures.  Aside from the few you see below, words and video news will have to suffice today.  We continued to get into the swing of things in second grade this week.  

In science, we learned what it means to observe something.  We used our magnifying glasses to look closely at plants and other things we found in the garden.  Students then wrote down their observations in their science journals.  Our first science unit is the life cycle of plants.  What better way to learn than to actually experience watching a plant grow in our very own garden!

 

We worked very hard as readers, writers and mathematicians this week as well.  This week during our reading time, we focused on two decoding strategies, sounding out the words or chunking out the word.

In writing, as Eli mentioned above, we wrote a poem all about ourselves called a Biopoem. You are in for a treat when you visit our classroom on Open School Night.

In math, we are continuing our work with place value, and we are also comparing numbers and counting larger numbers.

Thank you, parents, for helping out with the first week of homework.  All the kids felt good about it and said it went smoothly.

Have a great weekend and a wonderful Rosh Hashanah!

This week has been so productive!  On Thursday, we planned out the way we would display our rules.  After almost an hour of creativity, we decided to write our rules on a paper or cardboard tree,  to symbolize the garden, Teva,  and how much we have grown and will continue to grow.  Whenever we look at the tree, no matter how gray it is outside, we will always have a little piece of spring.  We plan to call it our Fifth Grade Tree of Wisdom because if we follow these rules, we will learn more and become wiser.

Other things that we almost put our rules on were a pyramid, a quilt, a window, a book, an envelope,  and every person writing and decorating a rule.  Some name ideas were ‘The way we rule’ ‘Kavod contract’ ‘fifth grade rules’ ‘our classroom is built on…’ and many variations of our current name. Read next week’s post to see the final product!

“There is a word family that I know, and ap is its name-o!”

This week we learned the lyrics to our first word family song and each child had the opportunity to add a beginning letter (or letters) to make an “ap” word. Together we created the following words: lap, clap, snap, map, tap, zap, cap, nap, and sap. The children also worked together to illustrate pictures to go along with the words.

 Here are the lyrics to our song: (sung to the tune of Bingo)

There is a word family that I know and ap is its name-0

a. p.

ap!

a. p.

ap!

a. p.

ap!

It ends in ap you know.

There is a word family that I know and ap is its name-o

l. a. p.

lap!

l. a. p.

lap!

l. a. p.

lap!

It ends in ap you know.

(Continue with more words…)

We’ve been using multi-sensory activities to explore making upper and lowercase letters. The children have used glitter and pom poms, “painted” with water on chalk boards, and used markers and white boards  to create the letters Aa, Bb, and Cc. We also utilized word poems to help us remember how to form the letters properly and use the line spaces appropriately. For instance, when making the lowercase “a” we say “Magic c up like a helicopter…bump!…pull down.”

In our uppercase/lowercase letter match game, some children were given a card with an uppercase letter, while others were given a card with a lowercase letter. The children had to find a friend with a “matching” card, and then find words around the classroom with those letters. Afterwards we all climbed aboard the Letter Express and took a “train ride” around the classroom, as the students shared the words that they found with their classmates.

We also started creating letter cards for our classroom alphabet wall! On each card, the children drew pictures beginning with the given letter. We have already created amazing illustrations for cards A, B, and C!

We learned our first two sight words this week!

I

Am

Using these two sight words, we officially started to make our Word Walk. This is similar to a word wall, except that it is on the ground, and will become a colorful path of sight words that will travel around our classroom. As we learn more sight words, and the path grows, we will be able to play word games and use the words in our writing! 

This week our Kindergarten authors and illustrators started making their  I Am books. Once completed, the children will read their books to one another in our first Readers Share of the year!

Spotted this week: amazing teamwork!  Here’s just some of the wonderful creations the children made together:

Block structures

A Play dough snail family

Stars for star counting

We’ve been playing the Fact or Opinion game! We learned that a fact is something that can be proved, while an opinion is something that may be true for some people, but cannot be proved. This is a great game to play at home. Here are two example of how we play:

“Fact or opinion…chocolate ice cream is the best ice cream in the world!”

Fact or opinion…today is Thursday.”

We’re also learning about even and odd numbers! We noticed the black green black green pattern on our calendar and discovered that the black numbers are odd and the green numbers are even! To help us understand this concept, each child was called up to the front one at a time. We learned that the number was even when each child had a buddy. However, if a child didn’t have a buddy to pair off with, that number was odd. We counted all the way to nine friends, and learned that we have an odd number of students in our classroom. Emily was kind enough to join the group, bringing us to an even ten!

Our buddies came to read books with us! Afterwards, we illustrated  our favorite parts of the stories together!

As we prepare for Rosh Hashanah, the children baked honey cakes, braided challah, and created another special surprise to bring home for Rosh Hashanah. Next week, we will begin our apple exploration!

 

We have been busy in second grade Judaic Studies doing a great job of recalling the Hebrew letters and how to read them after the summer break. Additionally, the students have been hard at work learning how to write the letters in script form.

Rosh Hashana is on the way and we have learned lots about the holiday.We have had great fun acting out many of the holiday activities and then guessing which holiday deed our classmates are doing.

 

We have learned many of the blessings/Brachot that we say on the holiday. We have done picture/blessing match up activities including playing memory with them.

We have learned about the Shofar through an inquiry based method in which the students began by thinking about what they already knew about the Shofar and how it’s made. Then we generated a list of questions that they wanted to find the answers to. The students were very curious about whether the shofar is naturally hollow or if there is a man-made process by which this happens. Through independent research on the Ipad, the students gained an excellent sense of how a Shofar is made.  Ask your child for a description of the shofar making process; they have quite a bit of information about this topic!

The second graders love to blow the Shofar and we have some expert Shofar blowers in our midst!