Hebrew Books!

Dear parents,

Our class is progressing greatly with their Hebrew fluency. The children love to read Hebrew stories and act them out at school.

Starting this week a few children will get a chance to take home a Hebrew book from our class library to read at home for that week, and share the story with their families.

Please encourage your children to read to you and explain the story.

This will be great to reinforce their Hebrew Fluency at home!

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Morah Mushky

morahmushkyokunov@gmail.com

Science, Social Studies and Math

Science

In science we started the unit: What is a scientist? What can a scientist observe? Some of the children's responses were: A scientist can observe the weather (Alan). Another student said they can observe a plant (Zaylin). We shared many ways a scientist can experiment using his tools. The students got a chance to explore as if they were scientists. They used a clip board to record their data, funnel  dropper, timer, measuring cup and a scale. After exploring the tools the children shared what they did. Sammy shared that she used the dropper to transfer the water to the scale. Nate timed the experiment he was working on.

We will be going to the Aquarium on October 24. We will be having a workshop about sharks.

Social Studies

Our Mazel students in first grade were exploring the world using a globe. They first discovered United States and then we spoke about were Russia is on the globe. We spoke about how each country has a leader. Sure enough the children knew the leader of our country is Obama. I then asked who was our first president and why he was chosen. Emy said George Washington was our first president. I explained to the children that he was a general and fought and won a war and therefor the people wanted him to be the President.

We began a unit of learning how the president is chosen. We talked about elections. Every four years a president gets elected to be president because the people vote for him. The candidates running for president have a debate about what they would do for their country. I asked the students if they had seen the debate on television. The children were not sure what I was referring to. So together we watched a Youtube video of the debate. Sure enough, students were stating "that was on my television yesterday". Soon, we are going to have our own elections in our class. The children are going to experience their own debate and how to vote.

Math

In Math, students are working on adding numbers using concrete objects. They use a ten frame using counters, in addition, they use number lines to jump when they add numbers.

Ten Frame

Number Line

In the beginning of the school year the children learned that numbers can be used in different ways such as in a sentence or numbers to add numbers and subtract.  For example, the students are proficient in knowing that the number three can be shown as: 3, three, ***. When it was time to work in groups, I would clap my hands three time and they would know to take out the card number 3, the word three, and the 3 manipulative foam.  These may seem like simple concepts but in first grade, we want to first ensure that our students have a very strong base in numeracy.  Over the year, the concepts become more complex and challenging.

Stay tuned for subtracting numbers.

Happy Birthday

I would like to thank parents who gave gift from the wish list. Happy birthday to Emy, Shimon, Sammy and Nate. Wishing many great years to come!

What a busy month we had!

Dear parents,

I hope you had a nice and uplifting Holiday!

In school the past few weeks were packed with learning why we celebrate each holiday and what we do to celebrate. In addition we made lots of projects for the children to use at home. Some of the projects we made were honey jars for Rosh Hashana, , Lulav and Esrog sets for Sukos,  Edible  Sukahs which the children got to eat in class and Flags for Simchas Torah when when we dance with the Torah.

Now that we are back to school I would like to encourage you to continue taking  the time to supervise your child when they do their reading  Homework to ensure ultimate success.

Feel free to contact me with any concerns,

Morah Mushky

Literacy

Writers Workshop

With such a packed day you wouldn’t think we would be able to squeeze something new in to our curriculum. Yet, we did just that this week when we began our editor centers! The children are working very hard in the process of journal writing. Stay tuned for their finished products.

Some good writing strategies include:

·         Capital in the beginning of a sentence

·         Period at the end of a sentence

·         Space between words

Penmanship

The children now know how to write capital and lower case “w, v, t, s, c.” Ask your child how we start to write our letter (at the top).

The children learned a song “where do you start your letters?”

 

Riddle of the Week

What did the heater say to freezer?

Have an ice day!

Reading Update

We are proud to announce that we have received our phonics workbooks. The children are proud to work on their own workbook using the phonics strategies we learned in class.  A few of the words the children learned how to blend this month include:

black

blink

trip

trick

In addition the children know how to use their time wisely when it’s time to read a book. Each child reads their book and shares with their friends what they read.

   

Let’s Review!

Please review the short vowels they already learned with Morah Dawn:

a e i o u

Sight words of the month:

Is          me

the        he

she        see

you        I

do          because

zoo        ten