Friday, December 20, 2013

It is so hard to believe that the first semester of school is over already! Where has the time gone?

I was so very impressed with the book reports from my literacy group. It was clear that everyone worked really hard. The students presented their reports to one another and were allowed to share positive comments and questions. The next report will be assigned after break.

We are also getting quite a collection of books written by our classroom authors. Stop by and read!

Character bags and books written by famous Se'orah and Hitah authors.

And, from Grades 1 and 2,  did you know that:

Zach: the guy who created The Statue of Liberty, the face was of his mother?

Gabrielle: The Statue of Liberty welcomes people to America?

Dafna: The Statue of Liberty tells you that you're safe in America?

Jillian: The Statue of Liberty represents freedom and it has a poem written by Emma Lazarus who was Jewish?

Ella: people came to America to be free?

Yafa: people came to America to get more money?

Clara: when people come to America they are called immigrants and they see The Statue of Liberty as a sign that they are free?

Will: The Statue of Liberty's face is that of the designer's mother? (Frederic Bartholdi)

Zalmen: The Statue of Liberty has a lot of symbols on it?

Ben: people come to America to be safe?

Samuel: there is a poem inside The Statue of Liberty?

Josh: The Statue of Liberty came from France in parts (214 crates)?

From our Guest Blogger Zach: "We finished some of our stories and we built a snow igloo. "

Wishing everyone a wonderful winter break and a Happy New Year!

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Friday, December 13, 2013

What a fun time the first and second graders had working on their immigration posters! They will be displayed in the front of the school next week. Please check them out! This is only the start of a very exciting and interesting unit!

Creating a poster about "Rosa" from Mexico.

Preparing to share about "Maria" from Italy.

"Chang" came to America because Chinese government wouldn't allow his father to keep his shop.

This week my literacy group learned about pronouns. In addition, we continued to review dictionary skills. During writer's workshop, the students are now expected to locate two misspelled words from their drafts in the dictionary. They also use the dictionary during our weekly spelling work as well.

My math group reviewed the calendar this week (days of week, months, days in a month, days in a year, and seasons). Next week we will be looking at calendars and answering questions as well as creating and labeling calendars.

Reminder:  the book report is due next week.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Friday, December 5, 2013

Dear Families,

This week grades 1 and 2 started to learn about immigration. We discussed all the reasons why someone might immigrate to the United States and we read a wonderful story about four different children who all immigrated from different countries for various reasons. Next week the students will work in groups to present what they learned about their character to the rest of the class.

Grade 1 joined Grade 2 for Writer's Workshop this week. Students were encouraged to write a story about something from their own lives or they could create a fictional story. Some began with a picture and then wrote about it and others began with words. All of our stories will be "published" and eventually sent home.

Next week my math group will be moving on to reading and using a calendar and after vacation we will learn how to tell time. We will also learn how to answer elapsed time word problems.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Friday, November 22, 2013

Dear Families,

This week my literacy group focused on guide words during grammar. We learned what they are, where they are found and how they work. Students were given entry words and three dictionary pages. They had to alphabetize to the fourth and fifth letter to figure out which page the entry words would be found on. Everyone did a great job!

Writer's Workshop is one of our favorite subjects. We are slowly creating a classroom library of great new stories written by students. They will soon be hanging on a bulletin board if you'd like to stop by and read them.

We completed our bridge unit this week. The students had a great time trying to figure out how to get the popsicle sticks to stand. When I asked them for one thing that was easy, they all said, "NOTHING!"

Today was a fun day with lots of activities. We began working on "Jewish" turkeys which will come home next week. And, for Hanukkah, there was a school-wide scavenger hunt and art project.

Reminders:
School is out at 12:15 on Wed., Nov. 27th

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Friday, November 15, 2013


This week my literacy class began to learn about dictionary skills. We practiced alphabetizing to the third letter and everyone did a great job! Skills to be covered in the next few weeks include the following: guide words, entry words, pronunciation, syllabication, definition and part of speech. Soon dictionary work will be included in our weekly spelling and our book reports.

My math group continues to work on money skills. Students are becoming proficient at adding coins and making small amounts of change. Some children began in a fun money packet called Menu Math to give a sort of "real life" experience to working with money.

In our bridges unit this week we worked on building our own bridges with popsicle sticks. It was a difficult task to first realize that a bridge must be three dimensional so that it can stand up. Then, it was even more challenging to get the bridges to stand! We will continue to work on this next week.

Bridge under construction.

And, from our Guest Blogger Gabrielle:

"I liked building bridges because it was fun to learn how to make them. I still have to figure out how to get it to stand up."

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Fishy Fun in First Grade

Of course the highlight of this past week was our field trip to the New England Aquarium! We were able to continue our study of sea animals and plants by interacting and making observations in person.

Learning about Tide Pool animals

Ashley became a sea urchin!

Touching some of the Tide Pool animals

An overall great trip! 

Although the Aquarium was the most notable thing we did this week, there was plenty of other learning going on. We were lucky to have HaMoreh Josh (with Baby Echo) help review some of our letter sound combinations.

We played a great new math game called 5 in a row.

 It's simple to play at home, here are the directions and game boards. Click on the picture to download the files.

For final thoughts on this week please read Ben's Week In Review: Aquarium Edition

Shabbat Shalom,
HaMorah Jaime

Friday, November 8, 2013

Dear Families,

First, from our Guest Blogger Clara:

"Today we went on a very interesting field trip. We learned a lot about sea animals. We touched some sting rays. I tried to touch a shark but it just wouldn't come to me. We took a class about sea animals and I got to touch a hermit crab, a snail, a mussel, a sea urchin, clams and scallops. My favorite part was seeing all the animals."

This week in my math class we continued to work on recognizing coins and adding up small amounts of coins. Next, we will focus on making change.

In my grammar group we continued with our parts of speech practice. Also, I sent home the first book report of the year. Book choices are due by next Friday, November 15th and the final project is due Tuesday, December 17th.

In our Building Bridges unit we learned about three types of bridges; suspension, beam and arch. We also learned about piers, spans and abutments. On our way to the aquarium we noticed a lot of bridges and the students were able to tell me the types!

Reminder: there is no school this Monday due to parent/teacher conference day.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Examining coins.

Touching a sea urchin.

So excited to be on a field trip to the aquarium!

Touching hermit crabs.

First grade updates

A few important updates for this week ...

Those in HaMorah Jaime's literacy class will now be filling out nightly reading logs! Please help your children to spend at least 10 minutes every night reading and then recording what they have completed. It will be sent home on Monday, and is due every Friday. Here is a link to the form, and a picture of what it looks like. It is in your child's homework folder! 

This Thursday is our field trip to the New England Aquarium! If you have not sent in a permission slip you must do so ASAP (click here for the form). Send your child with a brown bag lunch (no lunch boxes or reusable tupperware please!)

Friday, October 25, 2013

Dear Families,

Each week, in addition to my blog, we are now going to have a guest blogger. This week it is Dafna.

"The best part of school this week was Under the Sea because we did a lot of fun things like make a game about the ocean food chain and paint with salt water. In math we learned about fractions. A fraction is something that makes equal parts. "

Today we wrapped up our Under the Sea unit (even though the kids asked if we could do it all year!). All work was sent home. Please check backpacks. Our next unit starts Monday and it is about building bridges.

My math group is finishing up our unit on fractions. Next, we will review regrouping and then move right into a unit on money.

Reminder: please send back your field trip form if you have not yet done so.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Painting with colored salt water.

Fun in second grade!

Coloring ocean animals.

Fall Fun in First Grade

Fall fun abounds in First Grade! 

Math is all around us. We are using the changing leaves as inspiration in our morning message to begin graphing and charting. 

We have also been playing a fantastic new game that began as 20 Frame, and we are building up to 30 Frame, some are on 50 Frame, and there have been requests to have a marathon 100 Frame game day! Students take turn rolling dice and placing the corresponding number of counters on their frame until together they add up to 20, 30, or 50. 

On Thursday, Nov. 7 Kindergarten, First, and Second grade are all going on a field trip to the New England Aquarium! Click here for permission slips and be sure to return them by November 1st. 

Finally, here is Zalmen's summary of the highlights of this past week. 

October 18, 2013

Dear Families,

This week my literacy group learned about verbs. We also focused on creating better sentences. How can we add detail to make them more interesting and exciting?

In math we continue to work on fractions of groups. If there are 12 pencils, how many are in 1/4? 1/2? 1/6? 1/12? The students need to make different groups out of the pencils to find the answer.

For Under the Sea this week we learned about the coral reef. The students used pictures to figure out the names of different types of coral. They also used different clues to figure out what types of animals live in a coral reef. Next, the students were put into groups and given a fact sheet about a particular ocean animal. They were asked to create a fact page to share with the rest of the class. All of the pages will be put together into a class book which will come home at the end of the unit.

Learning about the coral reef.

More learning about the coral reef.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

First Grade Week In Review

What a wonderful week we've had!

Please remember to support your student by checking to see what homework they have each night in their homework folder. There will be 1 page per night on Monday - Thursday. Please remove the completed work (it will have a check and a sticker). If there are things that need to be fixed on homework I will send that home as well with a note explaining what fixes need to be made.

First a huge Kol HaKavod to our first graders for leading Mah Tovu at all school Tefillah these past 2 weeks.

In Fundations we have now mastered 23 letter / sound connections and we have been applying them to our reading. We truly put the FUN in Fundations with all of the different ways we study the letters; we write them on white boards, we skywrite them with our hands, we draw them with our entire bodies, and manipulate them as tiles on the magnetic boards.

Who knew math could be so much fun? Here are some pictures of students playing Make a Train Race. Try to play the game at home!

Make a Train Race

You will need:

• unifix cubes (You probably don't have these at home! You can use anything small that you have a reasonable quantity of, i.e. paper clips, pretzels, coins, baby carrots as long as they are all about the same size) 
• a precut piece of yarn (about a yard) 
• dice

Directions:
Play with a partner. The first person rolls a die and makes a train with that many cubes (or available object). They lay the cubes on one side of the yarn (at the end of the yarn.) The next person repeats and lays the cubes on the other side of the yarn. The child repeats, adding the cubes to his/her side of the yarn and saying out loud the numbers they are adding together. The winner is the first person to get to the end of the yarn.

This has been HaMorah Jaime's Week in Review, and now I would like to share Nir's Week in Review:

Shabbat Shalom,

HaMorah Jaime

October 11, 2013

Dear Families,

This week in my literacy class we finally finished our introductory Marc Brown Arthur books and packets. Now, each student has been placed in a reading group according to his or her level. The books we are using are Bertie's Picture Day by Pat Brisson. It is a cute story about a boy named Bertie who needs to get his school picture taken. But, before that happens, he ends up with a black eye, a bad haircut and a missing tooth. The other book we are using is Arthur's Funny Money by Lillian Hoban. In this story Arthur has to figure out a way to earn money if he is to buy the things that he wants. Each book comes with a comprehension packet. The children are expected to read the stories, answer applied, literal and interpretive questions and then use the book to work on grammar skills.

For grammar we learned that a noun is a word that names a person, place, or thing. We went on a "noun hunt" around the school and collected a huge list of nouns. Next week we will sort them.

In math, we continued our work on identifying fractions. Next, we will learn about fractions that represent groups. For example, what is 1/3 of 6?

For Under the Sea this week we learned about dolphins and whales. We also watched an Under the Sea video as well as a video about cuttle fish. Ask your child to share two interesting facts that he/she learned about cuttle fish.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Reminder: we DO have school on Monday, October 14th

Fun at recess.

Working together to learn about whales.

Comparing a whale to a fish.

Under the Sea cooperative group.

October 4, 2013

Dear Families,

We finally completed our first full week of school! 

In my math class we began to look at fractions. We learned that they are equal parts that make up a whole and we learned how to "read" a fraction. For example, 1/2 is read as "one out of two" or "one half." We had a few tricky problems to solve such as: if there are 8 lady bugs and you need to color 1/4, how many do you color? The kids learned that sometimes the bottom number of the fraction can mean a certain number of groups rather than the total number of parts.

My class also had their first spelling quiz. Next week our goal will be to have the full 10 words.

In science this week grades 1 and 2 completed ocean food chain posters. I hope that everyone was able to see them displayed in the front hall. We learned all about dolphins and how they use sound or "echo-location" to find their food. And, last, we learned that there are different parts of the ocean; the abyss, the surface, the ocean floor, a tidal pool and the open sea. The kids were given five different ocean animals and by reading rhymes about them, they had to figure out in which part of the ocean each animal lives.

And, finally, grades one and two began STAR (Sit Together and Read). We are reading and discussing Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is a very funny story about a fourth grade boy named Peter whose biggest problem in life is his 2-year-old brother, Farley.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Caren

Proudly displaying our Ocean Food Chain posters.

Homework Folders in First Grade

Hello First Grade Families,
I hope you all had joyous holidays together. We are now ready for our first full week of school! Today we established Homework Folders which will be a part of our daily routine. Students will have approximately 1 page of homework Monday - Thursday nights. Please check their Folders when they get home each day for work they have to complete, as well as any completed class work or school notifications for you. Homework and paperwork that needs to come back to school should be placed in the Folder to come back each day. Here is what your child's Homework Folder looks like: 

This week for Homework we will be working on the math story problems that each student wrote in class. Please look for your child's story one night this week! 

I look forward to seeing you all for Back to School Night on Wednesday. 

Shavua Tov,

HaMorah Jaime

September 25, 2013

Dear Families,

The children had fun this week as they prepared for our Israeli high school student visitors. They created a beautiful welcome sign to greet our special guests. And then they worked together with our guests to make beautiful flags in preparation for Simchat Torah.

For Under the Sea we viewed some slides on the computer to learn about the ocean food chain. Terms covered were predator, prey, carnivore, herbivore and omnivore.  The kids were placed into groups and each group was to create a poster to teach the rest of the class about their given term. We will finish them next week and then they will be displayed in the hallway.

Next week starts our first full week! Second grade will begin spelling, a nightly reading log and we will start our fractions math unit!

Chag Sameach!

Hamorah Caren

Reminder: back to school night is Wednesday, October 2nd.

Showing our Baruchim Habaim sign.

September 18, 2013

Dear Families,

We had a wonderful trip to Tougas Farm today! The students all enjoyed a hayride, learning to pick apples by twisting, picking a pumpkin and playing on the playground after lunch.

This week in our Under the Sea unit we watched slides about the ocean food chain and we learned the meaning of some very important terms:  predator, prey, carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. We also learned why it is important that the food chain not be broken.

Wishing you a wonderful Sukkot holiday.

Hamorah Caren

Visit Rav Shira's blog to see what is happening in Jewish Studies!

http://yomtovatyourhouse.blogspot.com/

Hello Hitah!

We have had a wonderful first 2 weeks of school! We have all enjoyed getting to know one another and forming an inclusive classroom community. It has been awesome welcoming 2 new students into our class! In first grade we begin each day with morning meeting where we get to share things going on in our lives, our calendar keepers maintains the calendar and the schedule, and our meteorologist observes and records the weather. We also enjoy our morning Tefillah together, and at the end the week celebrating Shabbat as a school family.

In math we are reviewing addition (and for some students subtraction!) and having some fun combining art and math these first two weeks. After counting out the number of decorations for our pencil boxes each student created a beautiful customized container for keeping their supplies.  

We have started Fundations (our literacy program) this week and everyone is engaging in all of the different ways to learn about letters! If your child was at MWJDS last year they had Fundations in Kindergarten. We are in the midst of Unit 1 which is mostly review and will go quickly. If your child has not had Fundations in Kindergarten, do not become discouraged with the pace of the progress. It may appear to be slow moving, but it is laying the necessary foundations for your child to be a fluent, independent reader.

During the next few weeks, I will be reviewing:
• The sequence of the alphabet.
• Letter formation from a to z.
• The letter name and a keyword for the consonants:  bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyz
• The letter name, and a keyword for the short vowels: a e i o u

The keyword is a specific word which we will use to help your child master each sound. Notice the letter y is not included as a vowel. This comes later. If y begins a word it is considered a consonant and for now, it will only begin words. Please work with your child to reinforce the above concepts.

I look forward continuing to share our exciting achievements over the course of the year. Once we have all of the release forms from families we will be able to post pictures of more Hitah happenings. 

Gmar chatimah tovah,
HaMorah Jaime

Friday, September 13, 2013

Dear Families,

Now that we have completed our first full week of school, we are more into the swing of things. The students are getting used to the new school routines and transitions are running a bit more smoothly.

In second grade reading, we shared the story of Arthur's Nose by Marc Brown. Then, the children were given their first comprehension packet to go with the book. In the packet they are expected to answer questions in complete sentences. Some grammar skills are mixed into the packet as well. This one covered alphabetizing to the third letter, ending sentences with the proper punctuation and filling in a story map. This packet was a "practice" for when the students are put into their own reading books. We will be doing another "practice" next week.

We also spent some time this week working on grammar skills. We reviewed that we need a capital at the beginning of every sentence and either a period, exclamation point or question mark at the end. We also began to look at our writing to see whether we have capital letters and lower case letters in the correct place.

In math we have been reviewing addition and subtraction facts and will continue to do so for the rest of the month.

In writing we discussed that we can write a story about absolutely anything and that even the most tiny detail can be turned into something very exciting. We also learned that a story needs a clear beginning, middle and end and we did some practice work.

And, finally, for our Under the Sea unit, we completed our scuba divers and wrote about what we would find if we took a dive under the sea. We also labeled all the parts of a scuba diver's suit,  we created covers for all of our work by drawing oceans and filling them with different sea creatures and we began a fish fun packet.

Shabbat Shalom.
Wishing all of you an easy fast.

Hamorah Caren

Reminders: Next week there is no school on Thursday and Friday in observance of Sukkot.
Also, our apple picking trip is Wednesday. Please send lunch in a paper bag, labeled, with only disposable items. Also, please send in a labeled water bottle.