The first 2 weeks of 2014

We started off the new year preparing for our wood scultpure gallery. Children completed their sculptures, some opting to add paint and others choosing the natural look. Sixth grade buddies helped us prepare by interviewing the Gan about their scultpures and taking notes on their answers (these are on display next to each scultpure.) We created invitations and transformed the library to a gallery. The excitement was palpable as the big day got closer and closer.

Many of you were able to attend the grand opening. I hope all of you have had a private tour of the exhibit, which will remain on display until the end of the upcoming week. Thanks to Amalya's grandparents for creating a beautiful photo gallery of the event, which you can view here.

We also spent the first two weeks of school studying some heroes of the civil rights movement - Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, and Ruby Bridges. We learned about the unfair laws that they bravely fought, and the strategies they used to change those laws. We also compared their struggle to the Maccabees in the Chanukah story. We brought these stories to life with our study of several songs of the civil rights movement, including "If you Miss Me at the Back of the Bus" and "Stayed on Freedom," and by re-enacting the story of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus.

Our study of these heroes included reading both biographies and autobiographies. These stories helped us in our new writing unit, Small Moments. We examined how the authors zoomed in on the most interesting parts of the stories and added lots of details.  This is the very work children are trying to do in their own personal narrative writing!

With all of these interesting projects, we also took time to celebrate Tu B'shevat, the birthday of the trees. We created a b-day book for the Trees, just like the ones we make for our classmates, each child contributing a page that tells what s/he likes about Trees. We attended a special seder with the 1-3 grades, which the Gan created beautiful centerpieces for to remind everyone of the almond trees that bloom in Israel at this time of year.

We ended the day planting paperwhite bulbs (from Israel!), so that our classroom can be in bloom too.....We'll be studying the growth of our plants in science journals which we began on Friday.

In Hebrew, we spent a week studying the names of items of clothing, and took a break last week to learn the names of parts of a tree. We'll return to clothing next week, and add on the names of winter clothing as well.

Of course, we are also reading, practicing our word work, continuing our Torah scrolls, and moving ahead in math (click here for Morah Andrea's latest blog post.)

See you tomorrow!