Class of 2017 (5th Grade)

A great big Todah Rabah to Aviv’s family for hosting our class at their sukkah! The weather cooperated and we had a wonderful visit, enjoying a delicious snack and a story about the four kinds of growing things that we bless during the holiday. The third graders were impressive in the connections that they made to the story, The Beautiful Willow, clearly understanding its messsage of “beauty is only skin deep” and “don’t judge a book by its cover”.     After reading a number of poems about peace, the third graders enjoyed writing an original poem about peace as we imagined the sukkah to be a shelter of peace that God spreads over us. This is the theme of the Hashkeyvanu prayer which is traditionally recited during the evening service. The students created beautiful dove decorations for the sukkah incorporating their poem as part of it.    

 

  Students compared the qualities of a temporary sukkah with the characteristics of a permanent house using the Hebrew book, The Sukkah is a Special House for the Holiday.

We completed the second entry for Sensing the Holiday Scrapbook Project. The list of sounds generated by the students of sounds that could be heard in the sukkah was quite extensive and well thought out demonstrating growth in our students’ creative thinking since the start of the school year just a few short weeks ago.

Now that the fall holidays have been celebrated, we are focusing on Hebrew language and Torah study. We played musical boxes as a fun filled way to reinforce the Hebrew vocabulary associated with our box unit.

 

The second and third graders enjoyed listening to the book, The Shofar That Lost Its Voice, a story about a boy named Avi who was planning to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashana and for some unknown reason the shofar would not sound.

 

It turns out that the shofar was reluctant to let its sound be heard in our world since there are so many sounds here that are unkind. The students thoughtfully considered which sounds the shofar would be satisfied with in our world and which ones we should work hard to get rid of in order to improve our world.

We have been composing Hebrew sentences in lots of different ways, orally, in written form, and with word cards for a number of different games. All of this is great practice in building expressive language skills.

And it’s especially fun when working cooperatively!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have readily settled into third grade Judaic Studies this year as the ending of second grade seamlessly flowed into the beginning of third grade in a looping educational manner. One of our first activities connected to the Rosh Hashana new year, was to search the classroom for as many things as the students could think of that had a beginning and an end and then to label them with the Hebrew words for beginning and end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The students came up with an incredible list of things in our classroom that had beginnings and endings, some tangible and some intangible – a sentence, the alphabet, love, the months of the year, the seasons, a human life, Jewish holidays, a piano keyboard to name a few!

The third graders continue to work on building their Hebrew language skills. They have had great success with the formal weekly assessment of a comprehension quiz. It is with motivation and seriousness that they approach their work on this.

 

 

The students have been fully engaged in the first entry for our Sensing the Holiday project. The third graders have discussed the ways we use multiple senses to experience the holiday of Rosh Hashana from hearing the call of the shofar to wake us up to self reflection, to smelling the round challah baking to tasting the sweet apples and honey for  a wonderful year ahead. The students then incorporate this information into a collage which will become part of a year long holiday scrapbook. Building emotional connections makes for long term memories!

Wishing all of you a sweet new year, Shana Tova U’Mitukah!

 

 

Welcome to Third Grade!

This past two weeks we:

• practiced our routines and went over classroom expectations.
• played games to get to know one another better!
• began our first unit Living and Learning! Students’ first two concept questions to ponder, “What can we learn by trying new things?” and “What can we learn by trading with one another?”
• began learning about place value and reviewing second grade math!
• learned about third grade expectations when writing and the “WRITING PROCESS”…..
• brainstormed our first DESIGN CHALLENGE:

1. students thought about a new classroom pet they would LOVE to have join us (and Gizmo).
2. they had to research about the pet of their choice and see if it would thrive in our classroom. The process had many guidelines and limitations. For example, the pet had to live in a 60+ gallon terrarium or aquarium and we would have to use our resources in the classroom or design lab to build a “close-to “natural habitat for it.
3. now they are in the process of writing a persuasive piece that will have to persuade an audience (our class and teachers) that the pet of their choice is the best pet for our classroom. Students must provide evidence and voice to convince readers. ACE Response (I’ll explain at Open School Night)!
4. DESIGN the most suitable natural habitat for your chosen class pet (on paper). 
5. prototype your habitat……
6. vote and create!

Morning Meeting

Working together to line up in alphabetical order without using any voices.

Easy? Hmmmm….

Students represent various numbers and line up in order from least to greatest without using their voices!

       Guess who? Check out our abstract self portraits.

The Chocolate Touch 

We are all reading this same exciting and suspenseful novel! We are presently divided into three reading groups.  We have the pleasure of having Marilyn Katz helping out in the classroom as well as Ms. Emily who spends every week with us during our guided reading time.

As you have probably heard Gili, our beloved bearded dragon, passed away one week before school began.

After students in grades 3-5 had time to process this sad news they decided to make a “memory box” in Gili’s name. Students wrote letters and made pictures and placed all the small sentiments in the box. It was one of the sweetest things I ever witnessed.  I will be closing this box soon and burying it with Gili.

 

 

Important to Note:

• Homework will be given on Monday due Wednesday & given Wednesday due Friday.
• Although third grade is a BIG transitional year……I would appreciate if parents looked at their child’s homework folder and signed their homework.  It helps reinforce the importance of using  a planner and getting into a routine of becoming more independent.
• Open School Night October 1st.
• No peanut butter on Friday.
• Please communicate with me via email jdavis@jcdsri.com or put a note in your child’s homework folder.

Thank you! 🙂