Kindergarten:
Mrs. Ivry-Judiacs
This week we introduced the new Brachot project. Every week we will learn a Bracha that we recite before eating different types of food. We will have games and possibly baking and food projects. They also learned the story of the Jews slavery in Egypt and we welcomed in our Parsha story the famous Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe teaches us the importance to pay attention to others, be caring and patient. Hashem chose him to be th leader because he displayed these important Middot towards his flock. When a friensd is having any kind of difficulty, we will try to help emphasize instead of laughing and making fun.
Shabbat Shalom
Mrs Ivry
Ms. Syetta-ELA
This week we read from a first grade reader. I am so proud of kindergarten they did an amazing job reading a first grade story! They learned all about what a character is and they created puppets of the main character Sam the cat. They learned how to edit their pattern books by looking back at their work and determining if they needed to add capitals, periods, or spaces in between their words. Then, using a smiley face rubric they learned how to grade their own work.
Ms. Syetta-Math
This week they continued to learn what greater than, less than, and equal to means. They practiced counting objects and writing if one group of object was greater than, less than, or equal to another group. They also reviewed how to fill in the number bond robots by adding or subtracting to discover what two numbers equal the whole.
Ms. Syetta-Social Studies
This week they learned all what makes an astronaut and a veterinarian a community helper. They wrote about the various ways veterinarians helps different types of animals and what tools veterinarians use. They also wrote about what they would do if they were an astronaut and they made their own astronaut.
Ms. Syetta-Science
This week we finished learning about what makes something living or non-living. We practiced cutting and gluing pictures of objects and sorting them based on if they were a living or a non-living thing. We also watched videos on how to determine if something is living or non-living and we learned a song.
1st Grade:
Mrs. Ivry-Judaics
First graders also learned about the new Brachot Project Every week we will learn a Bracha that we recite before eating different types of food. We will have games and possibly baking and food projects. They also learned the story of the Jews slavery in Egypt and we welcomed in our Parsha story the famous Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe teaches us the importance to pay attention to others, be caring and patient. Hashem chose him to be th leader because he displayed these important Middot towards his flock. When a friensd is having any kind of difficulty, we will try to help emphasize instead of laughing and making fun.
Shabbat Shalom
Mrs Ivry
Mrs. Perles-ELA
This week we wrote our first imaginative composition. I really thought the class would have a difficult time thinking of an intangible idea. However, boy was I surprised! They all wrote excellent stories about meeting a dinosaur. Most of them became friends,rode on his back, and even went out for ice cream.
We read our first mystery. We met 2 mice detectives looking for the bugs that disappeared. They solved the mystery by discovering that the bugs were camouflaged.
We started our third book called My Compound Book. We are learning that many large words are simply 2 small words put together for example, rain + bow = rainbow.
Finally, we learned 3 vowel sounds ar, er, and ir. We made a Smart Shark, Clever Lobster, and Chirping Bird. Then we played a matching card game.
Mrs. Perles-Social Studies
In Social Studies we are continuing to learn about the Separtists. We are very excited to get our president for the Social Studies Fair.
Mrs. Shats-Math
This week we worked on picture graphs, bar graphs and tally charts. Kids answered questions based on graphs and charts.
Mr. I.-Science
We continued our unit on the water cycle watching an interactive presentation which put the students in the middle of the action to help facilitate their knowledge. The class really enjoyed the presentation as if offered a unique way to grasp the material
2nd Grade:
Mrs. Spiegel-Judaics
We had a busy and exciting week.Last week we completed the First book
of the Torah in the synagogue on Shabbat.Therefore not only did we
learn Parsha,we reviewed the various episodes and people we studied
about in Sefer Breishit.We did this by practicing our reading skills
at the same time.We had cards of many people and objects in Hebrew on
our desks and when the children were asked one of the review questions
in Sefer Breishit they had to pick the right word on the card.They had
to read the answer and tell us what the word meant.This week we begin
the Second book of the Torah.On Shabbat we will read Sefer Shimot.
Parsha Shimot discusses the birth of our great leader Moshe(Moses)who
was put in the Nile river in a little box.(Check out our Parsha
project this week)and was found by King Pharohs daughter Batya.We
learn from Batya that we have to try our best to do what's right and
be the best we can be.Batya stuck out her hand to reach for the little
box in the Nile,and G-d helped her,miraculously her hand became longer
and she was able to retrieve the box.Batya made the first move (to
try) and G-d helped her.Shabbat Shalom,
Mrs. Shats-Math
This week we worked on adding and subtracting mentally using different strategies. Counting on and counting back by tens . Breaking apart numbers to easily add or subtract.
Mr. I.-Science
We continued our unit on the water cycle watching an interactive presentation which put the students in the middle of the action to help facilitate their knowledge. The class really enjoyed the presentation as if offered a unique way to grasp the material.
Ms. Regina-Literary Workshop
This week, we completed a new years activity. We talked about things we should stop doing and made personal goals we hope to complete in 2016. We are going to work hard to achieve these goals.
Ms. May-ELA/Social Studies
This week in 2nd grade we learned that authors/ writers write for different purposes (to entertain, to inform and to persuade) and we used this knowledge to studiously work on writing our Current Event articles to ensure that we are indeed writing for our audience (classmates)to teach them about current news. We also finally finished our class quilt which is adorned to our class wall for us to remember the memories that we hold dear. We learned about our new Spelling/Vocabulary words that will pop up in our 5th trade book, A Long Way to a New Land that we will begin reading next week. In S.S. we have been learning about the Three Branches of Government, and have begun discussing our SS Fair topic and all the fun and educational components of it!
3rd Grade:
Mrs. Shats-Math
We continued to work on multiplication and division with and without remainder. Completed multi step word problems with multiplication and division.
Ms. Regina-ELA
This week, we began our third novel, A Cricket in Times Square. We completed a lot of research to prepare for this book. We learned all about mice, crickets, and watched a video that took us from times square and into a subway station. The first chapter left us on a big cliffhanger thst left want us so much more! We also had our ice cream party for completing or ice cream sticker chart! It was delicious! We had flavor choices and told jokes.
Mr. I.-Science
We continued our unit on matter exploring properties such as reflectivity, malleability and transparency. We learned the formula for density and concluded that water has a density of 1 gram per milliliter. Some objects however, like oil have a higher density than water. We will continue to examine the various properties next week.
Mrs. K.-Judaics
Because Star Wars is extremely popular these days and the massage of "Forces" it delivers is quite clear. The 3rd graders delved into some of the many spiritual forces that we as Jews have and learned the Torah perspective on them. Some of the spiritual forces that we learned are 1) "Neshama" (soul), 2) "Yetzer Hara" (Bad inclinication) and 3) "Yetzer Tov" (good inclination). We spoke about the many choices that we have to make on a given day and how we should tap into the good force and listen to our yetzer tov although it may be very difficult to do at times. The students had a chance to speak and give scenarios of when they felt an internal struggle between their yetzer hara and yetzer tov. Some examples that were given in class were cheating on a test, being dishonest to a parent, taking revenge, bad language...etc. We spoke about the importance of applying the Torah to our lives so that we can become greater people. There are so many valuable lessons that we can learn from our "Avot" (Patriarchs), "Imahot" (Matriarchs) and all the great people that we speak about in the Torah. When we apply the force of Torah to our life it changes us as people and ultimately inspires us to listen to our Yetzer Tov. Another spiritual force that we spoke about is Shabbat. Shabbat is a tremendous force that we have in our week that allows us to tap into our spirituality and recharge our spiritual batteries. We reconnect with the ultimate good force which is Hashem.
The 3rd grade learned a new unit in Ivrit this week. They learned many new Hebrew words and how to form sentences with the shorashim (Root Words) that they already learned in previous weeks.
Hebrew Class in session:
Mrs. K.-Judaics
Because Star Wars is extremely popular these days and the massage of "Forces" it delivers is quite clear. The 4th graders delved into some of the many spiritual forces that we as Jews have and learned the Torah perspective on them. Some of the spiritual forces that we learned are 1) "Neshama" (soul), 2) "Yetzer Hara" (Bad inclinication) and 3) "Yetzer Tov" (good inclination). We spoke about the many choices that we have to make on a given day and how we should tap into the good force and listen to our yetzer tov although it may be very difficult to do at times. The students had a chance to speak and give scenarios of when they felt an internal struggle between their yetzer hara and yetzer tov. Some examples that were given in class were cheating on a test, being dishonest to a parent, taking revenge, bad language...etc. We spoke about the importance of applying the Torah to our lives so that we can become greater people. There are so many valuable lessons that we can learn from our "Avot" (Patriarchs), "Imahot" (Matriarchs) and all the great people that we speak about in the Torah. When we apply the force of Torah to our life it changes us as people and ultimately inspires us to listen to our Yetzer Tov. Another spiritual force that we spoke about is Shabbat. Shabbat is a tremendous force that we have in our week that allows us to tap into our spirituality and recharge our spiritual batteries. We reconnect with the ultimate good force which is Hashem. The students had a writing assignment that required them to think about the many choices that they have within a given day and how they can tap into their spiritual force to make the right decisions. It's definitely easier to lie rather than say the "Emet" (Truth), or not to listen to a parent when asked to clean up or turn off the television. Listening to the yetzer hara may be easier but doing what's right brings the most reward. The fourth graders learned that "We don't do what we want in life, but rather, we do what's right".
The fourth graders are moving along in their Ivrit workbooks. This week they finished another Ivrit story and answered many Hebrew questions.
Mrs. Uzhansky-Math
This week fourth grade learned how to multiply fractions by whole numbers and simplify them. Students also learned how to view a fraction as a set of objects. Word problems were completed with bar models.
Mr. I.-Science
we will continue our unit on matter looking into the various properties of matter.
Mr. I.-Social Studies
We took a test on geographical locations of the United States and the class as a whole did very well! We continued on to begin dissecting our SS fair topic which is pivotal supreme court cases. We talked about Brown vs Board of Ed on wednesday as well as Dred Scott vs Sanford. The class gained much interest in this discussion and grasped the national way of thinking 150 years ago when it came to issues like segregation and slavery. Next week, students will be assigned court cases in groups of 2.
Ms. Regina-Literary Workshop
This week we began our read aloud book. It is called The First Day of School Forever by R.L. Stine. We also completed a positivity activity about saying nice things to one another.
Ms. May-ELA
This week in ELA class the 4th graders continue to learn about Author’s Purpose and the different reasons we read and write. We have begun to discuss how good writers aim to engage their readers, always keeping in mind not only who their audience is, but what they desire. What better way to draw them in but with a hook?
We learned what a writing hook is and how important an introduction is to a body of writing. We also began to visually learn the structure of an essay, paying particular attention to the topic sentence in an introduction. The 4th graders are becoming stronger writers and paying attention to the rules of a good writer and a good reader that were once subconscious thought, and is slowly becoming a conscientious process.
We have been answering reading comprehension questions and learning some of the skills that we are tirelessly being tested on such as depicting the main idea of a passage and sequence of events, so not only will we successfully learn these skills, but we will have the ability to understand what is being asked of us in doing so. Test takers- beware….we’ll come equipped with a growing tool belt of supplies to master any question that gets in our way! Lastly, we have begun reading our 2nd trade book, Stargirl -another book that seems to have already hooked us!
5th Grade:
Mrs. Uzhansky-Math
This week in 5th Grade we initiated our unit on Geometry and learned how to find the area of squares, rectangles, triangles, parallelograms and polygons.
Mr. I.-Science
We continued our unit on the respiratory system and had a very interesting lab on Wednesday 12/30. The class dissected two articles one was about how an Israeli physician incorporated a method of blood testing which is able to diagnose patients with Alzheimers and Dementia early. This is a more cost effective and efficient method of diagnosis as opposed to a pet scan or MRI. The second article was about Israel opening the worlds first college for the autistic. This will give people with mental disabilities a chance to thrive and succeed. We concluded the lab by examining a human blood smear through a microscope and giving the class an opportunity to see the red blood cells.
Mr. I.-Social Studies
We started our unit on ancient civilizations and are currently studying the fertile crescent which is the birthplace of modern civilization. we are currently learning about the various city-states such as Sumer in 3000BC and the innovations they held. The important fact is the fertile crescent is located in modern day Israel and goes to prove that Israel is the birthplace of modern civilization.
Mrs. Grodsky-ELA
We have started working on our first research project. We have discussed which sources/websites can be counted on as reliable.
In literature, we have closed the chapter on The Great Fire and opened a new chapter called The Cay. We have touched several objects and tried to identify them with our eyes closed- just like any blind person would have to touch any unknown object to figure out its purpose and significance. We tried to relate to Phillip just by looking on from his point of view.
We finished the week with a vocabulary game where the two teams first had to act out the chosen words in sharades and then explain them in Taboo. Players on both sides were very creative in their synonyms and ways of acting.
5th Grade wrote essays about what it means to be a "Jewdi". We spoke about how we can relate to Star Wars as a Jew, and how the force is a powerful feeling inside all of us, to be good people.