Weekly Update: October 9th

Humanities
This week, the class finished looking at the various Native American groups across America. We learned how farming and hunting effect whether a tribe is nomadic or whether it settles into villages – and how you can often tell a tribe’s lifestyle by its shelter.

Students have also been working through the various stages of the writing process. Last week, they wrote a first draft of an essay, and this week they received edits and met in a writing conference to help them prepare their second draft.

Science
Our Science studies continued with the study of life cycles. We looked at the stages of humans and insects. Students also took research and prepared a bar graph which showed the correlation between geography, access to healthcare and clean water to a person’s life expectancy.

Math
At the heart of any good math lesson is having the students recognize its practical application. We took some time to look at how decimals help us estimate the price of snacks at a movie concession stand or glean knowledge about weather trends. This week also marked the beginning of Mrs. Forster joining our class to help us work better in small groups so we can challenge students and reinforce lessons as needed.

Music
from Wendy Forster
Grade 5 has been enthusiastically working on an aboriginal dance based on music from Australia. They have also been learning about Baroque music and how music is influenced by what is going on in all aspects of society during that time. There is a great website called Hyper History Online. The line is below: http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html .

Hebrew for English Speakers
from Arie Epstein
The subjects we learned this week:
- vocabulary for Sukkot
- activities for Sukkot
- writing a short story on Sukkot based on a picture
- using questions to create the story

Jewish Studies for English Speakers
from Mora Epstein
- learning about lulav and etrog and the sukkah
- discussed the holiday of Simchat Torah
- pesukim by heart, worked on our workbooks
- made a flag and read our J.S. library books
Chag sameach!