Wood Sculptures, Israel's B-day, and National Poetry Month. (And more.)

The highlight of the last two weeks has certainly been our unit in wood sculptures. We spent almost two full weeks immersed in wood - looking through our collection of wood and frame scraps, sorting the wood, exploring the many ways to arrange it, learning how to sand and glue it, and creating sculptures.

When children finished their sculptures, they drew pencil sketches of their sculpture, experimenting with 2-D representation of 3-D works of art. Finally, children wrote titles for their sculptures and answered questions about their work in writing. All of these items went on display as we transformed the library into a gallery.

 

Last week, we hosted our families for the grand opening of the gallery. Thank you for the lovely treats, Jacqui and Eli! We also hosted our sixth grade buddies and the Chamaniot class at Gan Keshet, and wrote invitations for the rest of the school to come visit.

While our sculpture work took the place of writing workshop for two weeks, we have been studying poetry during our Language Arts block. In honor of National Poetry Month (and because poetry is awesome) we've been reading, reciting and memorizing poems, including Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti, The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Grassy, Grass, Grass, by Woody Guthrie. 

We used the Woody Guthrie poem as a model for writing our first poems. We examined the meaning and the structure of the poem - how many lines per stanza? How many words per line? Which lines rhyme? - and explored the meter by listening to a recording of Woody Guthrie reading the poem. Each child wrote one stanza based on this mentor text - these are on display in the hallway. Next week we'll be looking at poems that do not rhyme, including The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams and April Rain Song by Langston Hughes, and continuing to write our own.

In Hebrew we spent the first week after Passover preparing for Israel's birthday - Yom Haaztmaut. We learned many Hebrew songs, including Kachol V'Lavan (Blue and White) and Eretz Yisrael Sheli, which you can watch here:

 

We also used our knowledge of colors and shapes to play guessing games in Hebrew about the flags of the world. We had a lot of fun reviewing colors and shapes by playing a game where each child had a card taped to his/her head and and had to ask the class questions in order to guess what card it was. It didn't record so well, but here's a glimpse:

 

We've been exploring solid shapes, dividing groups and items into equal halves, and reviewing addition and subtraction in math. In handwriting we have completed uppercase letters and numerals, and will be starting lowercase letters next week.

What else? We're busy making our shabbat boxes. Children painted candlesticks with Morah Kitty and are decorating their shoe boxes. On Friday, Elijah Nathman's grandmother will join us to make silk challah covers. If you haven't yet RSVP'd to the Gan shabbat dinner evite sent out by our class parents, would you please do so at your earliest convenience (and no later than Friday.)

As the warm weather finally descends upon us, please make sure your child has a water bottle every day. Thank you!