2nd/3rd Grade Letter
September 2017

Dear Parents,
Our lively class never holds back when it comes to working on projects.  Their energy and enthusiasm are tremendous. They are hands-on workers much of the time, and we are responding to them with more manipulatives for learning.  What is even more wonderful is that they are also strong readers. I feel lucky to have such a group this year!

MATH:  Each student has improved on their time-telling by using the clocks they made and practicing the digital and analog versions of time on paper.  They are progressing on the skills in their books as well.  A large part of the teacher's job when facilitating differentiated learning is to encourage some students to slow down as they practice skills while others can move more quickly once mastery has occurred.  You probably know whether your child leans toward the meticulous, slower-working end of the spectrum or is a speed demon who gets it done yet is less than accurate.  We all have such tendencies to recognize and improve upon, and this is an area we are working on with each of the students.
Note: As soon as we resume a full week schedule after the holidays, math homework will be assigned on a more regular basis.

READING: In addition to independent reading with choices, we are reading textbooks and online articles related to our social studies topics.  For non-fiction reading, I ask students to preview and make predictions based on skimming the headings and sections.  This helps focus their reading and improves comprehension. 

WRITING:  Students are practicing their handwriting, phonics, paragraph writing, and creative writing.  Most recently, they brainstormed about their own islands and described the details that would make their islands into great homes or visiting places for themselves and their friends.  

SOCIAL STUDIES: We have been studying world geography - continents, oceans, and varieties of landforms.  See if your child can name all five oceans (yes, five; this was news to me a few years ago). We had a history lesson about how the ancient woolly mammoth crossed a land bridge from Asia into North America long ago, so if you were wondering about the drawing of a hairy creature that came home, that's the reason.

SCIENCE: Science has been filled with hands-on activities that have allowed the students to experience force and motion. We learned about push and pull, gravity, inertia, position and location, speed, mass, and friction using such tools as Hot Wheels cars, paper airplanes, tennis balls, ping pong balls, straws, golf balls, crumpled paper, and flat paper. We are nearly finished with the unit and will soon begin a new topic.

JEWISH STUDIES:  Second and third graders have had three big experiential projects so far in Jewish Studies. We began the year making our own indigo-dyed kippot using a Japanese tie-dye technique called shibori. They are beautiful! We learned about the Jewish calendar being a lunar calendar and showed the cycle with all 30 phases of the moon, and the connection between the Roman calendar and the Hebrew calendar.

During the past two weeks we learned to make a model of a sukkah using only rolled newspaper. These models taught us how to build something so that it is strong and can stand on its own.  Now we are ready to create the 5' by 5' sukkah out of PVC pipe we have planned. These STEAM projects have been lots of fun!

HEBREW: We started the year reviewing the Hebrew Aleph Bet and vowels. We learned holiday vocabulary, such as Tapuah, D'vash, Shofar, and Rimon (apple, honey, shofar and pomegranate), and customs, created L'Shanah Tovah cards and talked about Slihah in our preparation for Yom Kippur. For Sukkot, we will learn about Arba'at HaMinim (the four species) that we shake in the Sukkah. We will also create a flag for Simhat Torah.
 After the holidays, we will continue with our letters and vowels and concentrate on different vowels and how they are used. We will start learning about B'reisheet and the story of creation, and the Hebrew vocabulary that is related to it, as well as songs and dances in Hebrew.

STEAM:   Creating a miniature golf course was the biggest STEAM project in September.  Students had to figure out how a plastic golf ball would fit into the tunnels or containers they made, and they had fun playing golf with everyone's designs.  Mrs. Pruess joined me in working with the students on a super project making cars from happy trash.  They enjoyed designing car parts and creating their own license plates.

Thanks for your continued support and concern for your children's education.  I don't believe they would be such wonderful students without it.

Mrs. V.


SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MRS. DINERMAN
Our students from 4th grade through 8th grade have beautiful artwork hanging in our local Cafe Culture (1359 N. Altadena Dr., across the street from our school) for the month of October! They are under new ownership and Christine invited us to share student artwork. They are a Fair Trade coffee house and are striving to be a community center with poetry slams, open mic nights, and a place for meetings. They serve Level Ground coffee, Homeboy pastries, and lunch item as well as gifts.
 
Please stop by to see our students' artwork displayed and support a neighborhood business. Thank you!

Weizmann Day School
1434 North Altadena Drive
Pasadena, California 91107