In The Classroom

General Studies – Ms. Vlodaver

Geography and Tales: An Integrated Social Studies and Reading Unit

Students will be continuing their study of the traditional literature genre. The focus in May will shift to learning about how different cultures have adapted traditional tales. For example, students will look at versions of Cinderella from Canada, China, and South Africa, to name just a few. We will be comparing and contrasting story elements, character traits, and the morals in these stories. Simultaneously, students will be learning about geography as we study the continents and plot these countries on a map.

Students have enjoyed practicing their reading fluency by performing readers’ theaters of The Three Javelinas and The Three Little Pigs.

Creatively Writing Our Own Tales

Excitement has filled the air as students have begun to craft their own versions of some of their favorite fairy tales and folktales. A wide variety of adaptations are starting to appear in class. Some students have changed the setting or characters in a traditional tale. Others have told a tale from a different point of view and there are even some who have combined 2 tales into a cohesive story.In May, we will continue to improve our stories by investigating the structure of tales and incorporating it into our own texts. We will also work on elaborating our stories using interesting details and dialogue. Finally, students will be revising and publishing these works.

Exploring Balance and Motion

In May, we will be beginning our study of balance and motion. Through explorations, students will discover that there are many ways to balance an object. They will develop an understanding of what a stable object is and how a counterbalance can help to balance an object. Students will also investigate spinning and rolling objects.

Last month, students experimented with building materials in an attempt to build a house that would withstand the power of the big bad hairdryer!

Whole-Number Operations Revisited

Math this month will focus on a number of key concepts. Students will:

• practice addition and subtraction stories with dollars and cents
• use estimation to examine their answers and determine whether the answers make sense
• review the uses of multiplication and division

• begin to develop multiplication and division fact power, or the ability to automatically recall the basic multiplication and division facts
• work with multiplication shortcuts to help them extend known facts to related
• review telling time on clocks with hour and minute hands
• use larger units of time, such as centuries and decades
• keep track of time in years, months, weeks, and days
• interpret measurement data, with special attention to the range, median, and mode of sets of data.

To work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit and in previous units, try these interesting and rewarding activities:

• Review common multiplication shortcuts. Ask, for example: What happens when you multiply a number by 1? By 0? By 10? Use pennies to show that 2 x 3 pennies is the same as 3 x 2 pennies.
• At a restaurant or while grocery shopping, work together to estimate the bill.
• Take turns making up multiplication and division number stories to solve.

Hebrew and Judaic Studies – Ms. Fogelson

Hebrew Language

The children have now finished the Hebrew cursive workbook. Not only have they learned to write the cursive forms of the Hebrew letters, the children also learned many new Hebrew words and have grown in their proficiency to create sentences in Hebrew.

During the coming weeks, the children will be working in the workbook Shalom. The focus of the workbook, is a day in the life of a sudent, beginning when the child wakes up in the morning and ending when then the child goes to sleep at night. By focusing on an entire day, the children are expected to use many different Hebrew verbs connected with the daily routine such as saying “Good morning”, getting up, praying, washing, drinking and eating breakfast, getting dressed and going to school.

Judaic studies – Jewish holidays

We recently celebrated Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israel’s birthday. Our second grade classes learned about several different waterfalls in Israel. The children loved seeing videos of the waterfalls at Banias, Gamla and Ein Gedi. As part of this unit, we studied how waterfalls are formed and as a culminating activity, we created our own mini-waterfall outside using sand, rock and water. The learning really came to life through the integration of science and Israeli geography.

For our next holiday unit, Yom Yerushalayim, we will learn about the city of Jerusalem. The children will become familiar with some of the important sites and buildings in Jerusalem, as well as learning about the symbol of the city. We welcome any family photographs taken in Jerusalem.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Shelley

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns either by phone at 952 381 3460 or by email at sfogelson@hmjds.org

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

The second grade students completed their second Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai and began the third and final book in this series. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read two delightful stories called “Batelephone” “On the telephone” and “Eyal V’Hashafan” “Eyal and the Bunny”. The students read the text with expression and then they continued the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew.

Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to their weekly homework readings. In addition, the students are continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script.

Their confidence with their Hebrew reading has soared this year. I am very proud of their accomplishments.

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we have been doing in second grade…

• Illustrated a Passover song-“Ehad Mi Yode’ah?”- Who knows one?

• Listened to the orchestral story of “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev
• Illustrated the scenery and characters with pencil and watercolor
• Studied MIA Art Adventures final two art pieces

“Pacific” Tz’daka Box by artist Tony Berlant, made in 1998 on display in the MIA Jewish Art Collection

Chinese Ceremonial Gateway, made in 1728 of handcrafted ceramic tile.

Art Adventures Art Project

Chinese Doorway with photo collage decoration

• Thursday, May 17, 10 – 11 a.m.
• Bus leaves at 9:30 a.m. and returns at 11:30 a.m.
• Parents/grandparents are invited to help chaperone
• Please RSVP to aorkin@hmjds.org

Upcoming projects…

• Junk Sculptures
• Landscape drawing from observation outside

All student library books are due back to the HMJDS library on the students’ mid-May library day.

Heads up, pardners! The end of the school year is closer than we might think! All library books are due back to the HMJDS library on the student’s middle-of-May library day, unless still needed for a class report or project. This allows us to do inventory and make sure the books are all available for the students next year. Families will be billed for books that have not been turned on by the Wednesday before Memorial Day, May 25.

These are library due dates for each class:

Library Due Date – Class (General Studies Teacher)

• Monday, May 7 – Goldblatt
• Wednesday, May 9 – Vlodaver
• Monday, May 14 – Dorman/Schochet

May Second Grade Library Classes

In May, second graders:

• Enjoy checking out new books added to the library from the Scholastic Book Fair, especially Easy Chapter Books.
• Had the opportunity to check out books relating to spring holidays Passover and Yom HaAtzma’ut
• Finish up their study of nonfiction books in the Dewey Decimal System with 800’s – books about literature, including poetry, mythology, joke books and short story collections, and 900’s – books about Geography and History, including Biography.

Music – Mr. Shaw

Students will have a final playing assessment as we approach the last weeks of school to show that they can play from a musical score. The students will learn to play two different rhythm accompaniment patterns to What Shall We Do? and Hey, Ho! Nobody Home! This playing assessment requires the students to enter after an eight measure introduction and to pause during a musical interlude between pieces. Students will also have a final vocal assessment on the songs Button, You Must Wander, and Tideo that require them to perform sixteenth notes. We will also continue to learn new songs that we can perform in harmony. This will be accomplished by singing songs that are rounds or that have vocal ostinatos. An ostinato is a repeated pattern that can accompany a song using notes within the chordal structure of the composition. The students have grown immensely in their musical skills this year.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Sing a varied repertoire of songs with others.
• Play a varied repertoire of instrumental music that is grade level appropriate.
• Read music and notate their own compositions using grade level skills.
• Listen to, analyze, and describe music using appropriate vocabulary.
• Evaluate music and music performances.
• Understand the relationship between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
• Understand music in relationship to history and culture.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

Spring is a very busy time at HMJDS; as we have many observations and celebrations, including the sixty-fourth birthday of Israel (Yom HaAtzma’ut), Art Adventures, and Fitness Week. I hope your student(s) picked activities for Fitness Week that will provide them with a fulfilling experience.

What’s Going On?

Your Second Grader just finished our volleyball unit. They started out learning and practicing eye-tracking and striking skills using balloons and then progressed to beach balls. During the second half of volleyball students participated in a modified game called “nuke ’em” where they learned conventional front line, back line positioning, player rotation, modified serving, and scoring.

What’s Next?

After volleyball we will venture outside (weather permitting) to play soccer in addition to a variety of assorted games. Earlier in the school year we played different versions of line soccer, but this spring the games will be closer to official soccer. Students will play different positions and learn the difference between offense and defense. We will finish the school year as we always do, playing softball in the warm sunshine.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is the week of May 28 so look for volunteer opportunities.

Technology – Ms. Olson

Let’s Learn Word

Second graders are digging deeper into Microsoft Word this month. It may seem a bit early to be teaching formatting tools including double spacing and headers and footers, but amazingly enough by the end of third grade, students are producing written papers on a productivity tool people in the business world use every day. Teaching second graders about the tools and icons related to Microsoft Word help allows them to become familiar with these types of tools so that when they see an icon in a different program they will recognize it and be able to use it accordingly. Challenge your child to show you how to:

• change fonts, colors, and the size of text,
• make a footer on a page, even,
• change their name by using replace.

We will surely visit these skills again in third and even fourth grade, but already your students are picking up skills they will use for years to come!

General Studies – Ms. Schochet

Geography and Tales: An Integrated Social Studies and Reading Unit

Students will be continuing their study of the traditional literature genre. The focus in May will shift to learning about how different cultures have adapted traditional tales. For example, students will look at versions of Cinderella from Canada, China, and South Africa, to name just a few. We will be comparing and contrasting story elements, character traits, and the morals in these stories. Simultaneously, students will be learning about geography as we study the continents and plot these countries on a map.

Students have enjoyed practicing their reading fluency by performing readers’ theaters of Spiderella, based on Cinderella, The Three Little Elephants and the Big Bad Mouse based on The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf, and Little Late Riding Hood.

Creatively Writing Our Own Tales

Excitement has filled the air as students have begun to craft their own versions of some of their favorite fairy tales and folktales. A wide variety of adaptations are starting to appear in class. Some students have changed the setting or characters in a traditional tale. Others have told a tale from a different point of view and there are even some who have combined 2 tales into a cohesive story. In May, we will continue to improve our stories by investigating the structure of tales and incorporating it into our own texts. We will also work on elaborating our stories using interesting details and dialogue. Finally, students will be revising and publishing these works.

Exploring Balance and Motion

In May, we will be beginning our study of balance and motion. Through explorations, students will discover that there are many ways to balance an object. They will develop an understanding of what a stable object is and how a counterbalance can help to balance an object. Students will also investigate spinning and rolling objects.

Whole-Number Operations Revisited

Math this month will focus on a number of key concepts. Students will:

• practice addition and subtraction stories with dollars and cents
• use estimation to examine their answers and determine whether the answers make sense
• review the uses of multiplication and division
• begin to develop multiplication and division fact power, or the ability to automatically recall the basic multiplication and division facts
• work with multiplication shortcuts to help them extend known facts to related
• review telling time on clocks with hour and minute hands
• use larger units of time, such as centuries and decades
• keep track of time in years, months, weeks, and days
• interpret measurement data, with special attention to the range, median, and mode of sets of data.

To work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit and in previous units, try these interesting and rewarding activities:

• Review common multiplication shortcuts. Ask, for example: What happens when you multiply a number by 1? By 0? By 10? Use pennies to show that 2 x 3 pennies is the same as 3 x 2 pennies.
• At a restaurant or while grocery shopping, work together to estimate the bill.
• Take turns making up multiplication and division number stories to solve.

Hebrew and Judaic Studies – Ms. Galili

Shalom

We will finish the book Shalom in the House and Outside. The students are learning all the major activities that we do from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep. For example, when we get up, we say Modah Ani (I thank God), we wash our hands, dress, have breakfast, go to school, have dinner, and then go to sleep. We will have breakfast at school and the students will use the vocabulary that they learned from this book. The students are making a small booklet of their daily activities. As part of learning these daily activities, we are also learning about things we have at home, such as TV, furniture etc. We will also learn about the seasons, and their importance.

Hagim

This month, we will learn about three holidays: Lag B’Omer, Yom Yerushalayim, and Shavu’ot. For Lag B’Omer, we will learn about the meaning of Lag B’Omer, the customs of the holiday, songs, and stories about the holiday. For Yom Yerushalaiym (Jerusalem Day), we will:

• learn about Jerusalem and why the city is so special,
• learn the history of the city;
• identify the symbols of the city,
• learn to sing new songs like Jerusalem of Gold – Yerushalyim Shel Zahav.

For Shavu’ot, we will learn:

• The different meanings of the four names of Shavu’ot
• Some of the Megillat Ruth (the Scroll of Ruth)
• Stories about Mount Sinai.

Last week, we celebrated Israel’s sixth-fourth birthday. The school focused on learning about the water in Israel. We had many activities and we shared our knowledge of Israel’s waterfalls with the rest of the school.

T’filot

I am amazed to see the growth the students have made this year. I enjoy listening to their deep thoughts about the prayers as we study and practice them. The students are learning to use the new Siddur and they are enjoying reading the blessing that you wrote to them.

Last week, we also learned Israel’s anthem – Hatikva. The students learned about the meaning and the hope to which the anthem relates.

Parshat Hashavuah

In Parshat Hashavuah, we continue the book Vayikra. We are learning the meaning and the importance of our inside, thoughts, and its influence on our outside, behavior. We connect it to our day-to-day activities and relationships with each other.

Over the summer months, it is important for students to continue to practice their Hebrew in order to retain their newly acquired skills. The second grade teachers have prepared a packet for your child and we suggest that students spend 20-30 minutes each week doing some of the packet work. Students who complete the packet will receive recognition from the school after the summer vacation.

Thank you,

Hamorah Hani

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

The second grade students completed their second Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai and began the third and final book in this series. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read two delightful stories called “Batelephone” “On the telephone” and “Eyal V’Hashafan” “Eyal and the Bunny”. The students read the text with expression and then they continued the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew.

Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to their weekly homework readings. In addition, the students are continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script.

Their confidence with their Hebrew reading has soared this year. I am very proud of their accomplishments.

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we have been doing in second grade…

• Illustrated a Passover song-“Ehad Mi Yode’ah?”- Who knows one?

• Listened to the orchestral story of “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev
• Illustrated the scenery and characters with pencil and watercolor
• Studied MIA Art Adventures final two art pieces

“Pacific” Tz’daka Box by artist Tony Berlant, made in 1998 on display in the MIA Jewish Art Collection

Chinese Ceremonial Gateway, made in 1728 of handcrafted ceramic tile.

Art Adventures Art Project

Chinese Doorway with photo collage decoration

• Thursday, May 17, 10 – 11 a.m.
• Bus leaves at 9:30 a.m. and returns at 11:30 a.m.
• Parents/grandparents are invited to help chaperone
• Please RSVP to aorkin@hmjds.org

Upcoming projects…

• Junk Sculptures
• Landscape drawing from observation outside

All student library books are due back to the HMJDS library on the students’ mid-May library day.

Heads up, pardners! The end of the school year is closer than we might think! All library books are due back to the HMJDS library on the student’s middle-of-May library day, unless still needed for a class report or project. This allows us to do inventory and make sure the books are all available for the students next year. Families will be billed for books that have not been turned on by the Wednesday before Memorial Day, May 25.

These are library due dates for each class:

Library Due Date – Class (General Studies Teacher)

• Monday, May 7 – Goldblatt
• Wednesday, May 9 – Vlodaver
• Monday, May 14 – Dorman/Schochet

May Second Grade Library Classes

In May, second graders:

• Enjoy checking out new books added to the library from the Scholastic Book Fair, especially Easy Chapter Books.
• Had the opportunity to check out books relating to spring holidays Passover and Yom HaAtzma’ut
• Finish up their study of nonfiction books in the Dewey Decimal System with 800’s – books about literature, including poetry, mythology, joke books and short story collections, and 900’s – books about Geography and History, including Biography.

Music – Mr. Shaw

Students will have a final playing assessment as we approach the last weeks of school to show that they can play from a musical score. The students will learn to play two different rhythm accompaniment patterns to What Shall We Do? and Hey, Ho! Nobody Home! This playing assessment requires the students to enter after an eight measure introduction and to pause during a musical interlude between pieces. Students will also have a final vocal assessment on the songs Button, You Must Wander, and Tideo that require them to perform sixteenth notes. We will also continue to learn new songs that we can perform in harmony. This will be accomplished by singing songs that are rounds or that have vocal ostinatos. An ostinato is a repeated pattern that can accompany a song using notes within the chordal structure of the composition. The students have grown immensely in their musical skills this year.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Sing a varied repertoire of songs with others.
• Play a varied repertoire of instrumental music that is grade level appropriate.
• Read music and notate their own compositions using grade level skills.
• Listen to, analyze, and describe music using appropriate vocabulary.
• Evaluate music and music performances.
• Understand the relationship between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
• Understand music in relationship to history and culture.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

Spring is a very busy time at HMJDS; as we have many observations and celebrations, including the sixty-fourth birthday of Israel (Yom HaAtzma’ut), Art Adventures, and Fitness Week. I hope your student(s) picked activities for Fitness Week that will provide them with a fulfilling experience.

What’s Going On?

Your Second Grader just finished our volleyball unit. They started out learning and practicing eye-tracking and striking skills using balloons and then progressed to beach balls. During the second half of volleyball students participated in a modified game called “nuke ’em” where they learned conventional front line, back line positioning, player rotation, modified serving, and scoring.

What’s Next?

After volleyball we will venture outside (weather permitting) to play soccer in addition to a variety of assorted games. Earlier in the school year we played different versions of line soccer, but this spring the games will be closer to official soccer. Students will play different positions and learn the difference between offense and defense. We will finish the school year as we always do, playing softball in the warm sunshine.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is the week of May 28 so look for volunteer opportunities.

Technology – Ms. Olson

Let’s Learn Word

Second graders are digging deeper into Microsoft Word this month. It may seem a bit early to be teaching formatting tools including double spacing and headers and footers, but amazingly enough by the end of third grade, students are producing written papers on a productivity tool people in the business world use every day. Teaching second graders about the tools and icons related to Microsoft Word help allows them to become familiar with these types of tools so that when they see an icon in a different program they will recognize it and be able to use it accordingly. Challenge your child to show you how to:

• change fonts, colors, and the size of text,
• make a footer on a page, even,
• change their name by using replace.

We will surely visit these skills again in third and even fourth grade, but already your students are picking up skills they will use for years to come!

General Studies – Ms. Goldblatt

Geography and Tales: An Integrated Social Studies and Reading Unit

Students will be continuing their study of the traditional literature genre. The focus in May will shift to learning about how different cultures have adapted traditional tales. For example, students will look at versions of Cinderella from Canada, China, and South Africa, to name just a few. We will be comparing and contrasting story elements, character traits, and the morals in these stories. Simultaneously, students will be learning about geography as we study the continents and plot these countries on a map.

Students have enjoyed practicing their reading fluency by performing readers’ theaters of The Three Javelinas and The Three Little Pigs.

Creatively Writing Our Own Tales

Excitement has filled the air as students have begun to craft their own versions of some of their favorite fairy tales and folktales. A wide variety of adaptations are starting to appear in class. Some students have changed the setting or characters in a traditional tale. Others have told a tale from a different point of view and there are even some who have combined 2 tales into a cohesive story. In May, we will continue to improve our stories by investigating the structure of tales and incorporating it into our own texts. We will also work on elaborating our stories using interesting details and dialogue. Finally, students will be revising and publishing these works.

Exploring Balance and Motion

In May, we will be beginning our study of balance and motion. Through explorations, students will discover that there are many ways to balance an object. They will develop an understanding of what a stable object is and how a counterbalance can help to balance an object. Students will also investigate spinning and rolling objects.

Children delighted in designing homes strong enough to withstand the wind of The “Big Bad Blowdryer!”

Whole-Number Operations Revisited

Math this month will focus on a number of key concepts. Students will:

• practice addition and subtraction stories with dollars and cents
• use estimation to examine their answers and determine whether the answers make sense
• review the uses of multiplication and division

• begin to develop multiplication and division fact power, or the ability to automatically recall the basic multiplication and division facts
• work with multiplication shortcuts to help them extend known facts to related
• review telling time on clocks with hour and minute hands
• use larger units of time, such as centuries and decades
• keep track of time in years, months, weeks, and days
• interpret measurement data, with special attention to the range, median, and mode of sets of data.

To work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit and in previous units, try these interesting and rewarding activities:

• Review common multiplication shortcuts. Ask, for example: What happens when you multiply a number by 1? By 0? By 10? Use pennies to show that 2 x 3 pennies is the same as 3 x 2 pennies.
• At a restaurant or while grocery shopping, work together to estimate the bill.
• Take turns making up multiplication and division number stories to solve.

Hebrew and Judaic Studies – Ms. Etzion

For our Yom HaAtzma’ut theme, the second graders learned about the importance of water in Israel. We focused on three waterfalls in Israel: The Banias, the Gamla, and the Ein Gedi waterfalls. In addition to learning about Israeli waterfalls, we taught about the scientific way in which a waterfall is created in nature. The students were taken outside and created their own natural waterfall.

The students will spend a lot of time studying many holidays: Yom HaAtzma’ut ( Israel’s Independence Day), Lag B’Omer, Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem’s Independence Day) and Shavuot.

It will be a busy month filled with songs, stories, history lessons, workbook pages, projects, Hebrew reading and of course writing grade level paragraphs.

We will continue in our Shabbat workbook, focusing on Havdallah.

In our Shalom workbook, we will learn modern vocabulary that deals with everyday living. Such as: getting up in the morning, getting dressed, eating breakfast, going to school or work etc.

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

The second grade students completed their second Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai and began the third and final book in this series. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read two delightful stories called “Batelephone” “On the telephone” and “Eyal V’Hashafan” “Eyal and the Bunny”. The students read the text with expression and then they continued the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew.

Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to their weekly homework readings. In addition, the students are continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script.

Their confidence with their Hebrew reading has soared this year. I am very proud of their accomplishments.

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we have been doing in second grade…

• Illustrated a Passover song-“Ehad Mi Yode’ah?”- Who knows one?

• Listened to the orchestral story of “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev
• Illustrated the scenery and characters with pencil and watercolor
• Studied MIA Art Adventures final two art pieces

“Pacific” Tz’daka Box by artist Tony Berlant, made in 1998 on display in the MIA Jewish Art Collection

Chinese Ceremonial Gateway, made in 1728 of handcrafted ceramic tile.

Art Adventures Art Project

Chinese Doorway with photo collage decoration

• Thursday, May 17, 10 – 11 a.m.
• Bus leaves at 9:30 a.m. and returns at 11:30 a.m.
• Parents/grandparents are invited to help chaperone
• Please RSVP to aorkin@hmjds.org

Upcoming projects…

• Junk Sculptures
• Landscape drawing from observation outside

All student library books are due back to the HMJDS library on the students’ mid-May library day.

Heads up, pardners! The end of the school year is closer than we might think! All library books are due back to the HMJDS library on the student’s middle-of-May library day, unless still needed for a class report or project. This allows us to do inventory and make sure the books are all available for the students next year. Families will be billed for books that have not been turned on by the Wednesday before Memorial Day, May 25.

These are library due dates for each class:

Library Due Date – Class (General Studies Teacher)

• Monday, May 7 – Goldblatt
• Wednesday, May 9 – Vlodaver
• Monday, May 14 – Dorman/Schochet

May Second Grade Library Classes

In May, second graders:

• Enjoy checking out new books added to the library from the Scholastic Book Fair, especially Easy Chapter Books.
• Had the opportunity to check out books relating to spring holidays Passover and Yom HaAtzma’ut
• Finish up their study of nonfiction books in the Dewey Decimal System with 800’s – books about literature, including poetry, mythology, joke books and short story collections, and 900’s – books about Geography and History, including Biography.

Music – Mr. Shaw

Students will have a final playing assessment as we approach the last weeks of school to show that they can play from a musical score. The students will learn to play two different rhythm accompaniment patterns to What Shall We Do? and Hey, Ho! Nobody Home! This playing assessment requires the students to enter after an eight measure introduction and to pause during a musical interlude between pieces. Students will also have a final vocal assessment on the songs Button, You Must Wander, and Tideo that require them to perform sixteenth notes. We will also continue to learn new songs that we can perform in harmony. This will be accomplished by singing songs that are rounds or that have vocal ostinatos. An ostinato is a repeated pattern that can accompany a song using notes within the chordal structure of the composition. The students have grown immensely in their musical skills this year.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Sing a varied repertoire of songs with others.
• Play a varied repertoire of instrumental music that is grade level appropriate.
• Read music and notate their own compositions using grade level skills.
• Listen to, analyze, and describe music using appropriate vocabulary.
• Evaluate music and music performances.
• Understand the relationship between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
• Understand music in relationship to history and culture.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

Spring is a very busy time at HMJDS; as we have many observations and celebrations, including the sixty-fourth birthday of Israel (Yom HaAtzma’ut), Art Adventures, and Fitness Week. I hope your student(s) picked activities for Fitness Week that will provide them with a fulfilling experience.

What’s Going On?

Your Second Grader just finished our volleyball unit. They started out learning and practicing eye-tracking and striking skills using balloons and then progressed to beach balls. During the second half of volleyball students participated in a modified game called “nuke ’em” where they learned conventional front line, back line positioning, player rotation, modified serving, and scoring.

What’s Next?

After volleyball we will venture outside (weather permitting) to play soccer in addition to a variety of assorted games. Earlier in the school year we played different versions of line soccer, but this spring the games will be closer to official soccer. Students will play different positions and learn the difference between offense and defense. We will finish the school year as we always do, playing softball in the warm sunshine.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is the week of May 28 so look for volunteer opportunities.

Technology – Ms. Olson

Let’s Learn Word

Second graders are digging deeper into Microsoft Word this month. It may seem a bit early to be teaching formatting tools including double spacing and headers and footers, but amazingly enough by the end of third grade, students are producing written papers on a productivity tool people in the business world use every day. Teaching second graders about the tools and icons related to Microsoft Word help allows them to become familiar with these types of tools so that when they see an icon in a different program they will recognize it and be able to use it accordingly. Challenge your child to show you how to:

• change fonts, colors, and the size of text,
• make a footer on a page, even,
• change their name by using replace.

We will surely visit these skills again in third and even fourth grade, but already your students are picking up skills they will use for years to come!

General Studies- Ms. Vlodaver

Fairy Tales and Folktales: An Imaginative Reading and Writing Workshops

Students recently completed a short unit on mysteries. The unit focused on the skill of inferring, reading between the lines. Students selected a book from the mystery genre, searched for clues, and inferred what the clue meant. In the pictures below, you can see several student detectives.

The next unit we will be studying focuses on the reading and role playing of folktales and fairy tales. Students will be asked to recount stories from diverse cultures, determine their central message, lesson, or moral and, compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from different cultures. The plan is that children will hone their skills of comprehension, critiquing and analyzing multiple perspectives, comparing and contrasting characters, story lines, morals, and lessons. Students will also have the opportunity to become actors and directors by performing Readers’ Theaters of several fairy tales. This will help readers to cultivate fluency through reading aloud repetitiously, each time with increasing authority and intonation.

In Writing Workshop, students will be writing adaptations of fairy tales and folktales. Students will be taught to make informal plans before they write. Students will learn to start thinking like an author and make decisions about how they are going to alter a traditional story.

Exploring Clothing in the Pioneer Times: An Integrated Science and Social Studies Unit

In April, students will be learning about the clothing worn by pioneers in the mid 1800s.They will compare and contrast the style of clothing worn by men, women, and children today and long ago.

Store-bought clothing was scarce. Most of what the pioneers had to wear was what they made themselves. Many pioneer families had to spin their own yarns and make their own cloth. Students will have the opportunity to try making some of their own clothing using fleece. Students will explore the following steps:

• Washing the fleece;
• Carding the fleece;
• Dying the wool using natural ingredients;
• Spinning the wool using drop spindles;
• Knitting the wool.

In March, students built homes from the pioneer times. These included dugouts, sod homes, and log cabins.

Developing Measurement Skills

In Unit 9, children will explore measurements of various types. They will estimate and measure distances by inch, foot, and yard, as well as centimeter, decimeter, and meter. Children will learn that measurements are not always exact; they will use terms such as close to, between, and about when describing measurements. For closer or more exact measurements, children will measure to the nearest half-inch and half-centimeter. In addition to measures of length, children will explore the areas of shapes using square inches and square centimeters. They will also begin to develop a sense of the size of units of capacity and weight, such as cups and liters and pounds and kilograms. Everyday Mathematics uses U.S. customary and metric units of measure. Children will make conversions within each system. They will not make conversions from one system to the other at this time. In Unit 9, your child will practice mathematical skills by playing the following games:

Equivalent Fractions Game

Players take turns turning over Fraction Cards and try to find matching cards that show equivalent fractions.

Fraction Top-It

Players turn over two Fraction Cards and compare the shaded parts of the cards. The player with the larger fraction keeps both cards. The player with more cards at the end wins!

Name That Number

Each player turns over a card to find a number that must be renamed using any combination of five face-up cards.

Number-Grid Difference Game

Players subtract 2-digit numbers using the number grid.

Hebrew and Judaic Studies – HaMorah Shelley

Judaics Studies – T’fillah (Prayer)

We are sure that you will agree that the children were wonderful at the Yom HaSiddur program. The children shared their understanding and reflections on four new prayers with great enthusiasm and confidence. They thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to ‘teach’ the class parents all that they had learned. Afterwards in the Beit Knesset, the children had the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in reciting the prayers and following along in their siddurim.

Since the program the children have enjoyed each opportunity to use their new HMJDS siddurim. They especially love reading the inscriptions from their parents. During the next few months, we will focus on the remaining blessings in Birkot Hashahar.

Hebrew language and holidays

Our school year begins and ends with many Jewish holidays. You can tell how much fun the children had on Purim!

During the weeks before spring break, our class was very busy preparing for Pesach. To prepare for the seder, we learned about each of the steps in the hagadah. The children enjoyed experienced the some of the steps first hand when they dipped karpas (parsley) in salt water, ate maror (horseradish) and matzah and haroset. The children loved singing the songs, including Mah Nishtana and Dayenu. In second grade, we placed a special emphasis on the song Ehad Me Yodeyah (Who knows one?). I hope that you enjoyed your family seders and that the children were able to participate and share what they had learn.

For our next holiday unit we will learn about Israel in honor of Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s birthday. The State of Israel will be 64 this year. The children will learn to identify and describe Israel’s flag, symbol and national anthem, HaTikvah. We will also compare the flags and symbols of the United States and Israel. We will sing familiar songs such as Kahol v’lavan as well as learning a number of new songs.

This year, as part of a school wide celebration, each grade will study a different aspect of water and its importance for the state of Israel. In second grade, we will learn about many of the beautiful waterfalls in Israel. We would welcome any family photographs taken at one of these beautiful sites.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Shelley

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns either by phone at 952 381 3460 or by email at sfogelson@hmjds.org

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

It was wonderful meeting with you during conferences and sharing the recordings of your child reading and speaking Hebrew. After conferences, I emailed each family the recordings for you to enjoy at home. I first recorded your child in the beginning of October and then recorded your child in the beginning of March. It is a joy hearing how much your child’s Hebrew skills have grown throughout the year!

The second grade students are completing their second Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai and will soon begin the third and final book in this series. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read a story called Lichvod Shabbat (In Honor of the Shabbat). The story tells of all the preparations that Ema does on Friday to get ready for Shabbat. She goes to the store to buy special foods, wine, flowers and hallot for their Shabbat dinner. The students read the text with expression and then they continued the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew.

Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to their weekly homework readings. In addition, the students are continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script.

The second grade students are also reading Pesah Kasher V’Sameah from the Tal Am series. Seder means “order”. The students will learn the Seder of the Seder (the order of the Seder- which part precedes each section in the haggadah). They will also learn the traditional songs which are sung at the Seder and talk about the customs of Pesah.

I want to wish you and your entire family Hag Kasher V’Sameah.

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we have been doing in art class…

Purim Masks and African Mask Making using an athletic sock, oil pastel, feathers, glitter glue, sequins and yarn.

Spring Portfolio Drawings of flowers and trees

Our final two pieces from the Art Adventures Program’s- Let’s Celebrate Life! Series.

California Artist Tony Berlant’s Tzedaka Box made in 1988 out of metal, plywood and steel.

Chinese ceremonial gate made in 1728 of hand-carved tile.

Upcoming project – Passover illustrated and laminated Song: Ehad Me Yodeah?

Important Upcoming Date!!!

Minneapolis Institute of the Arts Field Trip Wednesday is May 16 and Thursday May 17. Parent permission slips will be emailed home. The specific tour time will be on the slip. Students need written permission to go on the field trip. We encourage parents to meet us at the Institute of Arts ten minutes before the field trip if they wish to help chaperone. Please RSVP to Aimee Orkin if you can come help chaperone our tour.

Special thanks to the Sharon Lerner Visual Arts Fund, donated by the Posada and Lerner Families, for funding this amazing experience!

Library – Ms. Oskow

The library buzzed with excited students at the Scholastic Book Fair March 25-30. We earned more than $2,200 in profit for the HMJDS library budget. In addition, we took $1250 worth of books directly from the Fair for students’ immediate use, and earned $400 in book vouchers for more materials to order to complement classroom materials. Students are already excitedly checking out new books. People also donated books directly from the book sale to the classrooms or library.

A big thank you to the Book Fair Chairs, Beth Jasco, Ellen Berkelhamer, and Micki Litton, for all of your hard work!

And thank you to all of the great volunteers:

Judy Finkelstein, Gail Freedman, Michelle Gendlin, Alyssa Golob, Diane Greenberger, Michael Keller, Wendy Khabie, Becky Madigan, Melissa Mark, Emer O’Connor-Keller, Mark Roth, Laura Schmieg, Heidi Schneider, Beckie Skelton, Lisa Villalta, Kim Kotzen Wear, Lauren Weiser, and Dana Beth Weisman.

And student volunteers:

Talia H., Daniel H., Felicia & Haley J., Liang J., Avia K.-R., Chyna L.-L., Isaac M., Talia N., Ora R., Emmy S., and Zachariah W.S.

Teachers and Students Win Prizes in Book Fair Drawing

Two Grand Prize winners won $25 in Book Fair merchandise for the student, and $25 for his or her teacher to pick out books for the classroom: Sammie W. and Ms. Dorman/Schochet, Josh M. and Ms. Norton. Twenty-two other students in grades K-8 won posters. Students entered another drawing by creating a poster about a favorite book on a pineapple-shaped paper. Sydney W. won $25 worth of books from the Fair in that contest.

Hunger Games Mockingjay Pin Raffle

A limited-edition Hunger Games trilogy boxed set at the Book Fair contained a hotly desired Mockingjay pin. Mr. Gawronski and Mr. Portnoe were kind enough to buy boxed sets, keep the books, and donate their pins back for a raffle. Winners of the pins and a Hunger Games poster were pulled on Thursday, April 5.

Thank you to everyone who bought books, donated books or pins, or entered the Mockingjay raffle! Your purchases will enable us to buy many new books to enhance curriculum and aid students’ love of reading, as well as help us to update the library with electronic resources for the 21st Century.

Music – Mr. Shaw

We will continue to develop lessons about the members of the family of instruments. The students will hear all of the different tone colors of each of the instruments from the brass, woodwind, string, and percussion family. We will also be discussing the difference between a band and an orchestra. The students will be working on how to visually and aurally recognize the instruments by name and sound. Either in late April or early May grade two classes will watch a video presentation that is in the genre of historical fiction. Rossini’s Ghost is a wonderful story in which three women learn that friendship, like opera—or great pasta sauce—requires nurturing, patience, and time. In a kitchen in Italy in 1892, little Reliana helps her grandmother Rosalie make pasta sauce. As steam swirls magically through the kitchen Reliana finds herself transported though time back to a theater in Rome nearly 50 years earlier. During the story the students will hear an overture, as well as many arias from the opera, all with a storyline that keeps coming back to the value of friendship.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Evaluate music and music performances.
• Gain an understanding of the decision making process that musicians encounter when creating original music.
• Gain an understanding of musical style.
• Listen, analyze, and describe music.
• Understand music in relationship to history and culture.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

I enjoyed meeting with you at spring conferences and sharing fabulous Fitness Testing results. In case we didn’t have a chance to connect at conferences, fitness results will be presented on report cards as well. As the school year draws to a close there are some wonderful events to look forward to, including Fitness Week!

What’s Going On?

Your first grader is in the middle of our volleyball unit. We started out learning and practicing eye-tracking and striking skills using balloons and beach balls. Students started out performing individual and cooperative partner skills. They were given many different volleying challenges using different body parts. During the second half of volleyball students will be taught a modified volleyball game where they will learn conventional positioning, player rotation, and scoring.

What’s Next?

After volleyball we will venture outside (weather permitting) to play soccer in addition to a variety of assorted games. Earlier in the school year we played different versions of line soccer, but this spring the games will be closer to official soccer. Students will play different positions and know the difference between offense and defense.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is penciled in for the week of May 28. Look for volunteering opportunities.

Technology – Ms. Olson

Typing and formatting is FUN!

In third grade, students begin learning how to type properly. As second graders prepare for this challenge there are things that we can do to help them get ready. In the coming month we will be working in Microsoft Word to learn some formatting. Students will also be learning a lot about how to sit at the computer, using both hands to type, and beginning to learn where the keys are on the keyboard. As students develop these important skills, they will be getting a little glimpse of what they will be doing next year.

General Studies- Ms. Schochet

Fairy Tales and Folktales: An Imaginative Reading and Writing Workshops

Students recently completed a short unit on mysteries. The unit focused on the skill of inferring, reading between the lines. Students selected a book from the mystery genre, searched for clues, and inferred what the clue meant. In the pictures below, you can see several student detectives.

The next unit we will be studying focuses on the reading and role playing of folktales and fairy tales. Students will be asked to recount stories from diverse cultures, determine their central message, lesson, or moral and, compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from different cultures. The plan is that children will hone their skills of comprehension, critiquing and analyzing multiple perspectives, comparing and contrasting characters, story lines, morals, and lessons. Students will also have the opportunity to become actors and directors by performing Readers’ Theaters of several fairy tales. This will help readers to cultivate fluency through reading aloud repetitiously, each time with increasing authority and intonation.

In Writing Workshop, students will be writing adaptations of fairy tales and folktales. Students will be taught to make informal plans before they write. Students will learn to start thinking like an author and make decisions about how they are going to alter a traditional story.

Exploring Clothing in the Pioneer Times: An Integrated Science and Social Studies Unit

In April, students will be learning about the clothing worn by pioneers in the mid 1800s.They will compare and contrast the style of clothing worn by men, women, and children today and long ago.

Store-bought clothing was scarce. Most of what the pioneers had to wear was what they made themselves. Many pioneer families had to spin their own yarns and make their own cloth. Students will have the opportunity to try making some of their own clothing using fleece. Students will explore the following steps:

• Washing the fleece;
• Carding the fleece;
• Dying the wool using natural ingredients;
• Spinning the wool using drop spindles;
• Knitting the wool.

Developing Measurement Skills

In Unit 9, children will explore measurements of various types. They will estimate and measure distances by inch, foot, and yard, as well as centimeter, decimeter, and meter. Children will learn that measurements are not always exact; they will use terms such as close to, between, and about when describing measurements. For closer or more exact measurements, children will measure to the nearest half-inch and half-centimeter. In addition to measures of length, children will explore the areas of shapes using square inches and square centimeters. They will also begin to develop a sense of the size of units of capacity and weight, such as cups and liters and pounds and kilograms. Everyday Mathematics uses U.S. customary and metric units of measure. Children will make conversions within each system. They will not make conversions from one system to the other at this time. In Unit 9, your child will practice mathematical skills by playing the following games:

Equivalent Fractions Game

Players take turns turning over Fraction Cards and try to find matching cards that show equivalent fractions.

Fraction Top-It

Players turn over two Fraction Cards and compare the shaded parts of the cards. The player with the larger fraction keeps both cards. The player with more cards at the end wins!

Name That Number

Each player turns over a card to find a number that must be renamed using any combination of five face-up cards.

Number-Grid Difference Game

Players subtract 2-digit numbers using the number grid.

Hebrew and Judaic Studies – Ms. Galili

I would like to thank you for coming to conference with me. I am a great believer in direct communication between the students, parents, and teachers. I think it helps getting everybody involved and increases the students’ motivation. Thank you!

I am proud of the students’ progress this year, especially their creative writing. Students are using a great deal of humor in their stories and are willing to share their events from the day to day lives. Most importantly, the class really loves writing and contributing their thoughts..

We are starting a new book called Shalom that discusses different activities that we do around the house and outside. In addition, we will start another book called Shabbat Shalom & Oneg Shabbat that will teach the students the different customs, songs, and blessings of Shabbat.

Hagim

We continue learning and practicing the Pesah stories, traditions, customs, and songs. I hope that the students used their knowledge to contribute to the Seder and other Pesah activities. On their return to school, we will continue to count the Omer until Shavuot. We will also learn about the State of Israel and Yom HaAtzma’ut, Independence Day. Students will learn facts about Israel’s flag, history, national anthem, government, and day-to-day life.

T’fillot

Mr. Portnoe will visit our class and will teach the students how to use the new Siddur that they received on Yom Ha’Sidur. They will learn the meaning of the colors in the order of the Siddur. Your kids love to read the passages you wrote to them in the Siddur and are asking again and again for time to read them. They will use these Sidurim for every service they will participate in at HMJDS.

Parshat Hashavuah

In Parshat Hashavuah, we have learned Parashat Shemini. This parsha taught the students the distinction between kosher and non-kosher animals. We also had a very interesting discussion, looking at the tasks of the Kohanim to teach others during the days of the Torah. We compared this to modern times and looked at who teaches students important things today. Some of the answers the students provided were:

• “My father teaches me how to behave in public and with other people,”
• “My brother teaches me to love animals,”
• “My mother teaches me table manners”, etc.

I am sending the warmest wishes to you and your family for a Passover that’s blessed with all the special things in life that make you the happiest!

Hani Galili

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

It was wonderful meeting with you during conferences and sharing the recordings of your child reading and speaking Hebrew. After conferences, I emailed each family the recordings for you to enjoy at home. I first recorded your child in the beginning of October and then recorded your child in the beginning of March. It is a joy hearing how much your child’s Hebrew skills have grown throughout the year!

The second grade students are completing their second Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai and will soon begin the third and final book in this series. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read a story called Lichvod Shabbat (In Honor of the Shabbat). The story tells of all the preparations that Ema does on Friday to get ready for Shabbat. She goes to the store to buy special foods, wine, flowers and hallot for their Shabbat dinner. The students read the text with expression and then they continued the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew.

Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to their weekly homework readings. In addition, the students are continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script.

The second grade students are also reading Pesah Kasher V’Sameah from the Tal Am series. Seder means “order”. The students will learn the Seder of the Seder (the order of the Seder- which part precedes each section in the haggadah). They will also learn the traditional songs which are sung at the Seder and talk about the customs of Pesah.

I want to wish you and your entire family Hag Kasher V’Sameah.

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we have been doing in art class…

Purim Masks and African Mask Making using an athletic sock, oil pastel, feathers, glitter glue, sequins and yarn.

Spring Portfolio Drawings of flowers and trees

Our final two pieces from the Art Adventures Program’s- Let’s Celebrate Life! Series.

California Artist Tony Berlant’s Tzedaka Box made in 1988 out of metal, plywood and steel.

Chinese ceremonial gate made in 1728 of hand-carved tile.

Upcoming project – Passover illustrated and laminated Song: Ehad Me Yodeah?

Important Upcoming Date!!!

Minneapolis Institute of the Arts Field Trip Wednesday is May 16 and Thursday May 17. Parent permission slips will be emailed home. The specific tour time will be on the slip. Students need written permission to go on the field trip. We encourage parents to meet us at the Institute of Arts ten minutes before the field trip if they wish to help chaperone. Please RSVP to Aimee Orkin if you can come help chaperone our tour.

Special thanks to the Sharon Lerner Visual Arts Fund, donated by the Posada and Lerner Families, for funding this amazing experience!

Library – Ms. Oskow

The library buzzed with excited students at the Scholastic Book Fair March 25-30. We earned more than $2,200 in profit for the HMJDS library budget. In addition, we took $1250 worth of books directly from the Fair for students’ immediate use, and earned $400 in book vouchers for more materials to order to complement classroom materials. Students are already excitedly checking out new books. People also donated books directly from the book sale to the classrooms or library.

A big thank you to the Book Fair Chairs, Beth Jasco, Ellen Berkelhamer, and Micki Litton, for all of your hard work!

And thank you to all of the great volunteers:

Judy Finkelstein, Gail Freedman, Michelle Gendlin, Alyssa Golob, Diane Greenberger, Michael Keller, Wendy Khabie, Becky Madigan, Melissa Mark, Emer O’Connor-Keller, Mark Roth, Laura Schmieg, Heidi Schneider, Beckie Skelton, Lisa Villalta, Kim Kotzen Wear, Lauren Weiser, and Dana Beth Weisman.

And student volunteers:

Talia H., Daniel H., Felicia & Haley J., Liang J., Avia K.-R., Chyna L.-L., Isaac M., Talia N., Ora R., Emmy S., and Zachariah W.S.

Teachers and Students Win Prizes in Book Fair Drawing

Two Grand Prize winners won $25 in Book Fair merchandise for the student, and $25 for his or her teacher to pick out books for the classroom: Sammie W. and Ms. Dorman/Schochet, Josh M. and Ms. Norton. Twenty-two other students in grades K-8 won posters. Students entered another drawing by creating a poster about a favorite book on a pineapple-shaped paper. Sydney W. won $25 worth of books from the Fair in that contest.

Hunger Games Mockingjay Pin Raffle

A limited-edition Hunger Games trilogy boxed set at the Book Fair contained a hotly desired Mockingjay pin. Mr. Gawronski and Mr. Portnoe were kind enough to buy boxed sets, keep the books, and donate their pins back for a raffle. Winners of the pins and a Hunger Games poster were pulled on Thursday, April 5.

Thank you to everyone who bought books, donated books or pins, or entered the Mockingjay raffle! Your purchases will enable us to buy many new books to enhance curriculum and aid students’ love of reading, as well as help us to update the library with electronic resources for the 21st Century.

Music – Mr. Shaw

We will continue to develop lessons about the members of the family of instruments. The students will hear all of the different tone colors of each of the instruments from the brass, woodwind, string, and percussion family. We will also be discussing the difference between a band and an orchestra. The students will be working on how to visually and aurally recognize the instruments by name and sound. Either in late April or early May grade two classes will watch a video presentation that is in the genre of historical fiction. Rossini’s Ghost is a wonderful story in which three women learn that friendship, like opera—or great pasta sauce—requires nurturing, patience, and time. In a kitchen in Italy in 1892, little Reliana helps her grandmother Rosalie make pasta sauce. As steam swirls magically through the kitchen Reliana finds herself transported though time back to a theater in Rome nearly 50 years earlier. During the story the students will hear an overture, as well as many arias from the opera, all with a storyline that keeps coming back to the value of friendship.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Evaluate music and music performances.
• Gain an understanding of the decision making process that musicians encounter when creating original music.
• Gain an understanding of musical style.
• Listen, analyze, and describe music.
• Understand music in relationship to history and culture.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

I enjoyed meeting with you at spring conferences and sharing fabulous Fitness Testing results. In case we didn’t have a chance to connect at conferences, fitness results will be presented on report cards as well. As the school year draws to a close there are some wonderful events to look forward to, including Fitness Week!

What’s Going On?

Your first grader is in the middle of our volleyball unit. We started out learning and practicing eye-tracking and striking skills using balloons and beach balls. Students started out performing individual and cooperative partner skills. They were given many different volleying challenges using different body parts. During the second half of volleyball students will be taught a modified volleyball game where they will learn conventional positioning, player rotation, and scoring.

What’s Next?

After volleyball we will venture outside (weather permitting) to play soccer in addition to a variety of assorted games. Earlier in the school year we played different versions of line soccer, but this spring the games will be closer to official soccer. Students will play different positions and know the difference between offense and defense.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is penciled in for the week of May 28. Look for volunteering opportunities.

Technology – Ms. Olson

Typing and formatting is FUN!

In third grade, students begin learning how to type properly. As second graders prepare for this challenge there are things that we can do to help them get ready. In the coming month we will be working in Microsoft Word to learn some formatting. Students will also be learning a lot about how to sit at the computer, using both hands to type, and beginning to learn where the keys are on the keyboard. As students develop these important skills, they will be getting a little glimpse of what they will be doing next year.

General Studies – Ms. Goldblatt

Fairy Tales and Folktales: An Imaginative Reading and Writing Workshops

Students recently completed a short unit on mysteries. The unit focused on the skill of inferring, reading between the lines. Students selected a book from the mystery genre, searched for clues, and inferred what the clue meant. In the pictures below, you can see several student detectives.

The next unit we will be studying focuses on the reading and role playing of folktales and fairy tales. Students will be asked to recount stories from diverse cultures, determine their central message, lesson, or moral and, compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from different cultures. The plan is that children will hone their skills of comprehension, critiquing and analyzing multiple perspectives, comparing and contrasting characters, story lines, morals, and lessons. Students will also have the opportunity to become actors and directors by performing Readers’ Theaters of several fairy tales. This will help readers to cultivate fluency through reading aloud repetitiously, each time with increasing authority and intonation.

In Writing Workshop, students will be writing adaptations of fairy tales and folktales. Students will be taught to make informal plans before they write. Students will learn to start thinking like an author and make decisions about how they are going to alter a traditional story.

Exploring Clothing in the Pioneer Times: An Integrated Science and Social Studies Unit

In April, students will be learning about the clothing worn by pioneers in the mid 1800s.They will compare and contrast the style of clothing worn by men, women, and children today and long ago.

Store-bought clothing was scarce. Most of what the pioneers had to wear was what they made themselves. Many pioneer families had to spin their own yarns and make their own cloth. Students will have the opportunity to try making some of their own clothing using fleece. Students will explore the following steps:

• Washing the fleece;
• Carding the fleece;
• Dying the wool using natural ingredients;
• Spinning the wool using drop spindles;
• Knitting the wool.

Developing Measurement Skills

In Unit 9, children will explore measurements of various types. They will estimate and measure distances by inch, foot, and yard, as well as centimeter, decimeter, and meter. Children will learn that measurements are not always exact; they will use terms such as close to, between, and about when describing measurements. For closer or more exact measurements, children will measure to the nearest half-inch and half-centimeter. In addition to measures of length, children will explore the areas of shapes using square inches and square centimeters. They will also begin to develop a sense of the size of units of capacity and weight, such as cups and liters and pounds and kilograms. Everyday Mathematics uses U.S. customary and metric units of measure. Children will make conversions within each system. They will not make conversions from one system to the other at this time. In Unit 9, your child will practice mathematical skills by playing the following games:

Equivalent Fractions Game

Players take turns turning over Fraction Cards and try to find matching cards that show equivalent fractions.

Fraction Top-It

Players turn over two Fraction Cards and compare the shaded parts of the cards. The player with the larger fraction keeps both cards. The player with more cards at the end wins!

Name That Number

Each player turns over a card to find a number that must be renamed using any combination of five face-up cards.

Number-Grid Difference Game

Players subtract 2-digit numbers using the number grid.

Hebrew and Judaic Studies – Ms. Etzion

It was wonderful seeing everyone at Yom HaSiddur! The students were quite impressive! Upon returning from Passover break we will immediately start learning about Yom HaAtzma’ut, Israel’s Independence Day. The students will receive a new workbook in which they will learn new vocabulary regarding the State of Israel. The students will learn the meaning of the Hatikvah and other popular Israeli songs. Yom Ha Atzmaut festivities will take place throughout the school day. This year, the school theme will be water and the importance of it in Israel. We will study a variety of important water sources in Israel such as the Kineret, the Jordan River, and multiple water falls. We will also incorporate Yom HaZikaron, which is the Memorial Day for Israeli soldiers, into our studies. Students will also learn about Yom Yerushalayim,the reunification of Jerusalem. They will be taught: new vocabulary, symbols of the city, songs, and the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. Students will finally celebrate the completion of the Ariot Script workbook. The students are now fluent in script writing!!

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

It was wonderful meeting with you during conferences and sharing the recordings of your child reading and speaking Hebrew. After conferences, I emailed each family the recordings for you to enjoy at home. I first recorded your child in the beginning of October and then recorded your child in the beginning of March. It is a joy hearing how much your child’s Hebrew skills have grown throughout the year!

The second grade students are completing their second Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai and will soon begin the third and final book in this series. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read a story called Lichvod Shabbat (In Honor of the Shabbat). The story tells of all the preparations that Ema does on Friday to get ready for Shabbat. She goes to the store to buy special foods, wine, flowers and hallot for their Shabbat dinner. The students read the text with expression and then they continued the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew.

Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to their weekly homework readings. In addition, the students are continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script.

The second grade students are also reading Pesah Kasher V’Sameah from the Tal Am series. Seder means “order”. The students will learn the Seder of the Seder (the order of the Seder- which part precedes each section in the haggadah). They will also learn the traditional songs which are sung at the Seder and talk about the customs of Pesah.

I want to wish you and your entire family Hag Kasher V’Sameah.

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we have been doing in art class…

Purim Masks and African Mask Making using an athletic sock, oil pastel, feathers, glitter glue, sequins and yarn.

Spring Portfolio Drawings of flowers and trees

Our final two pieces from the Art Adventures Program’s- Let’s Celebrate Life! Series.

California Artist Tony Berlant’s Tzedaka Box made in 1988 out of metal, plywood and steel.

Chinese ceremonial gate made in 1728 of hand-carved tile.

Upcoming project – Passover illustrated and laminated Song: Ehad Me Yodeah?

Important Upcoming Date!!!

Minneapolis Institute of the Arts Field Trip Wednesday is May 16 and Thursday May 17. Parent permission slips will be emailed home. The specific tour time will be on the slip. Students need written permission to go on the field trip. We encourage parents to meet us at the Institute of Arts ten minutes before the field trip if they wish to help chaperone. Please RSVP to Aimee Orkin if you can come help chaperone our tour.

Special thanks to the Sharon Lerner Visual Arts Fund, donated by the Posada and Lerner Families, for funding this amazing experience!

Library – Ms. Oskow

The library buzzed with excited students at the Scholastic Book Fair March 25-30. We earned more than $2,200 in profit for the HMJDS library budget. In addition, we took $1250 worth of books directly from the Fair for students’ immediate use, and earned $400 in book vouchers for more materials to order to complement classroom materials. Students are already excitedly checking out new books. People also donated books directly from the book sale to the classrooms or library.

A big thank you to the Book Fair Chairs, Beth Jasco, Ellen Berkelhamer, and Micki Litton, for all of your hard work!

And thank you to all of the great volunteers:

Judy Finkelstein, Gail Freedman, Michelle Gendlin, Alyssa Golob, Diane Greenberger, Michael Keller, Wendy Khabie, Becky Madigan, Melissa Mark, Emer O’Connor-Keller, Mark Roth, Laura Schmieg, Heidi Schneider, Beckie Skelton, Lisa Villalta, Kim Kotzen Wear, Lauren Weiser, and Dana Beth Weisman.

And student volunteers:

Talia H., Daniel H., Felicia & Haley J., Liang J., Avia K.-R., Chyna L.-L., Isaac M., Talia N., Ora R., Emmy S., and Zachariah W.S.

Teachers and Students Win Prizes in Book Fair Drawing

Two Grand Prize winners won $25 in Book Fair merchandise for the student, and $25 for his or her teacher to pick out books for the classroom: Sammie W. and Ms. Dorman/Schochet, Josh M. and Ms. Norton. Twenty-two other students in grades K-8 won posters. Students entered another drawing by creating a poster about a favorite book on a pineapple-shaped paper. Sydney W. won $25 worth of books from the Fair in that contest.

Hunger Games Mockingjay Pin Raffle

A limited-edition Hunger Games trilogy boxed set at the Book Fair contained a hotly desired Mockingjay pin. Mr. Gawronski and Mr. Portnoe were kind enough to buy boxed sets, keep the books, and donate their pins back for a raffle. Winners of the pins and a Hunger Games poster were pulled on Thursday, April 5.

Thank you to everyone who bought books, donated books or pins, or entered the Mockingjay raffle! Your purchases will enable us to buy many new books to enhance curriculum and aid students’ love of reading, as well as help us to update the library with electronic resources for the 21st Century.

Music – Mr. Shaw

We will continue to develop lessons about the members of the family of instruments. The students will hear all of the different tone colors of each of the instruments from the brass, woodwind, string, and percussion family. We will also be discussing the difference between a band and an orchestra. The students will be working on how to visually and aurally recognize the instruments by name and sound. Either in late April or early May grade two classes will watch a video presentation that is in the genre of historical fiction. Rossini’s Ghost is a wonderful story in which three women learn that friendship, like opera—or great pasta sauce—requires nurturing, patience, and time. In a kitchen in Italy in 1892, little Reliana helps her grandmother Rosalie make pasta sauce. As steam swirls magically through the kitchen Reliana finds herself transported though time back to a theater in Rome nearly 50 years earlier. During the story the students will hear an overture, as well as many arias from the opera, all with a storyline that keeps coming back to the value of friendship.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Evaluate music and music performances.
• Gain an understanding of the decision making process that musicians encounter when creating original music.
• Gain an understanding of musical style.
• Listen, analyze, and describe music.
• Understand music in relationship to history and culture.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

I enjoyed meeting with you at spring conferences and sharing fabulous Fitness Testing results. In case we didn’t have a chance to connect at conferences, fitness results will be presented on report cards as well. As the school year draws to a close there are some wonderful events to look forward to, including Fitness Week!

What’s Going On?

Your first grader is in the middle of our volleyball unit. We started out learning and practicing eye-tracking and striking skills using balloons and beach balls. Students started out performing individual and cooperative partner skills. They were given many different volleying challenges using different body parts. During the second half of volleyball students will be taught a modified volleyball game where they will learn conventional positioning, player rotation, and scoring.

What’s Next?

After volleyball we will venture outside (weather permitting) to play soccer in addition to a variety of assorted games. Earlier in the school year we played different versions of line soccer, but this spring the games will be closer to official soccer. Students will play different positions and know the difference between offense and defense.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is penciled in for the week of May 28. Look for volunteering opportunities.

Technology – Ms. Olson

Typing and formatting is FUN!

In third grade, students begin learning how to type properly. As second graders prepare for this challenge there are things that we can do to help them get ready. In the coming month we will be working in Microsoft Word to learn some formatting. Students will also be learning a lot about how to sit at the computer, using both hands to type, and beginning to learn where the keys are on the keyboard. As students develop these important skills, they will be getting a little glimpse of what they will be doing next year.

General Studies – Ms. Vlodaver

Biographies: Developing Non Fiction Reading and Paragraph Writing Skills

Students will be continuing to develop their reading and writing skills through the completion of the biography research project. We will spend much of March determining what facts are important, summarizing them, and organizing them. Next, students will synthesize this information into well developed paragraphs that feature a topic sentence, strong transitions, and a clincher. Some of the topics researched include early life, accomplishments, and character traits of the subject of their biography. The final product will be the creation of a large artistic representation of their biography subject in their traditional attire. The report will fit inside the clothing. Look for directions to be coming home soon to make the body.

Comparing and Contrasting Shelters: a Science and Social Studies Experience

In March, students will be beginning to apply the information we have learned this year about properties of material and matter. They will learn about the relationship between objects and the materials used to make them. Through discussions and experiments, the children will discover that the properties of a material make it ideal for some uses and less ideal for others. For instance, students will be asked to decide whether metal would be a good material for a window or string would be a good material for a chair? Then, they will explore using materials to build towers, and even a house that can withstand the big bad hairdryer.

Students will be using these principles of science to help them understand the variety of shelters used by pioneers in Minnesota including dugouts, sod houses, and log cabin. They will learn about the typical interior and exterior of these homes and the challenges of living in these types of homes. Students will discover that climate, location, natural resources, and the wealth and makeup of the family are key factors in determining the type of home built by families moving to Minnesota in the 1850s.

In the pictures below, you can see highlights of several of our recent science activities:

• Separating a mixture into its elements
• Making Oobleck and Slime
• Making ice cream in a baggie

Mathematics: Exploring Patterns, Operations, and Fractions

In March students will be completing Unit 7. They will concentrate on number patterns, computational skills, complements of tens, and the application of mathematics through the use of data. They will continue to use the 100-grid to support their numeration skills and explore patterns of doubling and halving numbers, which will help prepare them for continued work with multiplication and division. Children will also collect and work with real-life data about animals, adults, and themselves. For example, they will collect data by measuring the lengths of their standing long jumps and then find the median jump length for the class.

Students will also begin Unit 8 which reviews and extends concepts of fractions. Specifically, they will recognize fractions as names for parts of a whole. Children will learn that many different fractions can name the same quantity. Students will also explore relationships among fractions as they work with pattern-block shapes and Fraction Cards that show shaded regions.

To work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit, try these activities:

• Review fraction notation. For example, ask: “In a fraction, what does the number on the bottom (the denominator) tell you?” “What does the number on the top (the numerator) tell you?”
• Draw a picture of a rectangular cake, a circular pizza, or a similar food (better yet, have the real thing). Discuss ways to cut the food to feed various numbers of people so each person gets an equal portion.
Read a recipe and discuss the fractions in it. For example, ask: “How many one fourth cups of sugar would we need to get 1 cup of sugar?”
• Compare two fractions and tell which is larger. For example, ask: “Whichwould give you more of a pizza one eighth or one fourth?”

Hebrew – Ms. Fogelson

Hebrew Language

Over the next few months, each child will make an oral presentation to the class. This new assignment is designed to encourage the children to speak in Hebrew, drawing on the vocabulary they have learned over the last few years. The children will be given a small white paper bag to decorate and fill with pictures and items that tell about themselves. They will also have a set of questions and prompts to guide them as they fill their bag. The information or topics the children can cover include:

• their family
• their age
• pets
• favorite foods/colors
• hobbies and after school activities
• seasons and holidays

The class enjoyed listening to the first two presentations and we are looking forward to hearing from all of the children in the coming months.

Judaic Studies – Holidays

We seemed to have returned to the season of holidays. In second grade, much of the holiday curriculum is taught in Hebrew and the children review and build on the vocabulary that they learned in first grade. In the Purim unit, we revisited the story in the megillah and as a culminating activity the children chose one of the central characters to write about. As part of the writing process, the children were encouraged to include descriptive adjectives and events from that character’s life.

Towards the end of the month, we will shift our attention to the holiday of Passover. We will revisit the story of the Exodus, once again focusing on the main characters and their actions. We will also learn about the different steps of the Seder and the symbolic items on the seder plate. The children will have the opportunity to read central prayers and songs from the Hagadah in preparation for their own family celebrations. I am sure that they will be active participants at the seders they attend this year.

Judaic Studies – Parashat hashavuah

In the book of Shemot, the Children of Israel are given instuctions to build the Mishkan, (the Tabernacle) a place where they can bring sacrifices and feel close to God. In class, we will compare the objects in the Mishkan to those we find in synagogues today. We will also compare the role of the Kohen Hagadol (the High Priest) to that of a rabbi, and the idea of bringing animal sacrifices to today’s practice of reciting prayers. We recently read the story of the giving of the Ten Commandments. Afterward, I asked the children to think of an 11th commandment that they felt was important. Here are some of their answers.

“You should never be mean to people who are a different religion or color because you are also a kind of religion and color. Just because people are different you should never make fun of them.”

“You should not litter because it hurts Mother Nature and the animals that we love.”

“Don’t cheat because if everybody cheats nobody will learn and I think learning is fun and it’s kind of like stealing.”

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Shelley

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns either by phone at 952 381 3460 or by email at sfogelson@hmjds.org

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

The second grade students love their Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read a story called “Ema Holah” (Mother is sick). The story tells of little Tziporah coming home and finding her mother sick in bed. Tziporah takes care of her sick mother by bringing her hot milk and comforting her. The students not only read the text with expression, but continued to embellish with the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew. The students enjoy using props while performing the stories. The students carefully “track” one another reading the various Hebrew stories. The Hebrew stories will continue to be sent home at the end of the week. Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to your child read the stories and signing the Hebrew homework. The students are also continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script. The students are feeling more and more confident with both their Hebrew writing and reading. I am very proud of the students’ accomplishments!

Art – Ms. Orkin

Students completed drawing a still-life of a toy from observation, using pencil and oil pastel. They then played with the toys. It is amazing how detailed their drawings are!

Students created African masks after studying about an African Plank mask on their second installment of the Art Adventures program.

Students created Purim sock puppets. They drew emotions on the face and painted it. Then they added hair and hat and put a costume on their puppet. Students then decorated the puppets with pom poms, sequins, and oogley eyes.

Upcoming projects include:

We are in the midst of our third installment of the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Art Adventures curriculum on the theme “Let’s Celebrate Life!”

Students looked at:

A Lakota Native American women’s dress from 1880 and an Indian sculpture of Shiva Nataraja from the late 10th century.

Our project will be a beading mosaic picture of Native American Indian design.

Our Passover project will be a painted afikomen napkin for the middle matzah to be hidden in.

Happy upcoming holidays!!

Ms. Orkin

Library – Ms. Oskow

HMJDS Scholastic Book Fair March 25-30!!

Biggest fundraiser of the year for the library

Books available for preschool through adults at Scholastic’s discounted prices. 25% of money collected goes to the library.

Book Fair Hours:

Sunday, March 25 - 9:00 AM-1:00 PM

Monday, March 26 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Class Preview Day

Tuesday, March 27 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Class Preview Day

Wednesday, Mar. 28 - 8:00 AM-8:00 PM – HMJDS Conferences PM

Thursday, March 29 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Conferences PM

Friday, March 30 - 8:00 AM-4:00 PM

Student Preview Days

Each HMJDS class visits the Book Fair Monday, March 26 or Tuesday, March 27. Students write a Wish List of books and may buy books.

Teacher Wish Lists

Teachers post Wish Lists and families can buy books or Gift Certificates to dedicate for classrooms, specialists, or the library.

Contests to Win Free Books

Parents or adult relatives can enter their students in a drawing anytime they stop by the Book Fair together through Thursday, March 29 (once per student). On Thursday, March 29, two students’ names will be drawn to win $25 worth of books—and a winning student’s teacher also chooses $25 worth of books! Students’ names are drawn for other prizes, too.

Additional drawing: for students who design posters celebrating their favorite book to decorate the library. Posterboard available from Ms. Oskow. Posters due by March 22.

Visit the Book Fair Online

http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/hmjds

The Online Book Fair:

• allows your child to send wish lists, and invite family and friends to participate in the Book Fair
• offers an expanded book selection – books for all ages, even adult titles
• is available for an extended time: Monday, March 19 to Sunday, April 8.

Volunteers Needed For Book Fair

• Set up the Book Fair on Friday, March 23
• Tear down the Book Fair on Monday, April 2
• Staff the Book Fair during open hours

Please contact Book Fair Chairs Micki Litton, Beth Jasco or Ellen Berkelhamer – or sign up on the sheet that will be posted outside the library.

Music – Mr. Shaw

During the month of March we will be reviewing the different parts of notes so students can continue composing their own rhythms. We will spend time in class practicing how to draw whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and the quarter rest. We will use these rhythms to write four measure compositions. Children will then use these rhythmic compositions as material to play on non-pitched percussion instruments. I am hoping that these compositions will be ready for the students’ music portfolios so you can see your child’s composition skills at spring conferences. I also anticipate that we may work on the concept of musical style and how the same song can sound quite different depending on musician’s interpretation.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Read lyrics from song sheets.
• Use solfege (Curwen) hands signals to indicate melodic direction.
• Develop the competency to perform music through modeling.
• Gain an understanding of musical style.
• Identify appropriate song styles.
• Read and write visual symbols that indicate rhythm.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

I hope everyone had a meaningful Sh’vat. In my lower school classes we recognized Tu b’ sh’vat by incorporating the holiday theme into our warm-up activity. I also hope that you have been enjoying Adar!

What’s Going On?

Your second grader just finished their rope jumping unit and is now participating in gymnastics. This year we will use the balance beam, vault and the handstand spotter.

In the beginning the balance beam height will be 30 inches. It will be raised six to twelve inches during the course of the unit. Students will be introduced to different balance beam challenges to create two to three different skills in their balance beam routine. This includes the dismount onto the crash mat while landing on their feet without dropping to their knees.

In vaulting students will learn the proper approach to the spring board, hurdle onto two feet and either tuck or straddle over the 24-36 inch vault.

Handstands will be introduced using the wall for support. If your student is capable of supporting their own weight they will be able to use the back handspring spotter.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is penciled in for the week of May 21 so look for volunteering opportunities!

Technology – Ms. Olson

How Do I Find GREAT Websites For My Second Grader?

Have no fear… HMJDS is here! It just so happens that at school your child uses our custom Portaportal website to find safe and age level appropriate websites that are also interesting, educational and fun! If you don’t already have the HMJDS Portaportal set up on your home computer, please follow these instructions:

• Go to www.portaportal.com
• Along the right side you will see a field in a box labeled Guest Access. Click in the box and type hmjds.
• Once hmjds is typed, click visit.

It’s that simple and now your child will be able to access all of the websites that we work on in school and even try out some others… You may even sneak back into the first grade list for some fun games they used to play or up to the grade three list to try something more challenging.

The HMJDS Portaportal site is updated periodically when a new website comes to our attention that we feel is important to share with students. If you know of a site that you feel we should know about and possibly add to the Portaportal, please contact me and I will consider it for addition to our Portaportal.

General Studies – Ms. Schochet

Biographies: Developing Non Fiction Reading and Paragraph Writing Skills

Students will be continuing to develop their reading and writing skills through the completion of the biography research project. We will spend much of March determining what facts are important, summarizing them, and organizing them. Next, students will synthesize this information into well developed paragraphs that feature a topic sentence, strong transitions, and a clincher. Some of the topics researched include early life, accomplishments, and character traits of the subject of their biography. The final product will be the creation of a large artistic representation of their biography subject in their traditional attire. The report will fit inside the clothing. Look for directions to be coming home soon to make the body.

Comparing and Contrasting Shelters: a Science and Social Studies Experience

In March, students will be beginning to apply the information we have learned this year about properties of material and matter. They will learn about the relationship between objects and the materials used to make them. Through discussions and experiments, the children will discover that the properties of a material make it ideal for some uses and less ideal for others. For instance, students will be asked to decide whether metal would be a good material for a window or string would be a good material for a chair? They will explore using materials to build towers, and even a house that can withstand the big bad hairdryer.

Students will be using these principles of science to help them understand the variety of shelters used by pioneers in Minnesota including dugouts, sod houses, and log cabins. They will learn about the typical interior and exterior of these homes and the challenges of living in these types of homes. Students will discover that climate, location, natural resources, and the wealth and makeup of the family are key factors in determining the type of home built by families moving to Minnesota in the 1850s.

In March students will be completing Unit 7 math. They will concentrate on number patterns, computational skills, complements of tens, and the application of mathematics through the use of data. They will continue to use the 100-grid to support their numeration skills and explore patterns of doubling and halving numbers, which will help prepare them for continued work with multiplication and division. Children will also collect and work with real-life data about animals, adults, and themselves. For example, they will collect data by measuring the lengths of their standing long jumps and then find the median jump length for the class.

Students will also begin Unit 8 which reviews and extends concepts of fractions. Specifically, they will recognize fractions as names for parts of a whole. Children will learn that many different fractions can name the same quantity. Students will also explore relationships among fractions as they work with pattern-block shapes and Fraction Cards that show shaded regions.

To work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit, try these activities:

• Review fraction notation. For example, ask: “In a fraction, what does the number on the bottom (the denominator) tell you?” “What does the number on the top (the numerator) tell you?”
• Draw a picture of a rectangular cake, a circular pizza, or a similar food (better yet, have the real thing). Discuss ways to cut the food to feed various numbers of people so each person gets an equal portion.
Read a recipe and discuss the fractions in it. For example, ask: “How many one fourth cups of sugar would we need to get 1 cup of sugar?”
• Compare two fractions and tell which is larger. For example, ask: “Which would give you more of a pizza one eighth or one fourth?”

Hebrew – Ms. Galili

Ari-ot

The students are very excited that we have finished the Ari-ot book. We have studied all the letters in script and have added 120 new words to our vocabulary. The students have learned to use singular and plural and to master it as it relates to gender. This is not an easy task in Hebrew as the words have different extensions in plural depending on the gender of the word. They have also learned to identify and use the correct terms for those unique words that do not follow the gender rules.

The students are also improving in their creative writing. I enjoy reading their work and appreciate their humor and wisdom using the words we have learned. They are becoming very good at connecting them correctly.

We are starting a new book called Shalom that discusses different activities that we do around the house and activities that we do outside. In addition, we will start another book called Shabbat Shalom & Oneg Shabbat, that will teach the students the different customs, songs, and blessings of Shabbat.

Hagim

We celebrated Tu’Bishvat and had a seder. The students were fully engaged in the seder. They learned the meaning of the hag and learn to appreciate all the fruits that we have. I would like to take this opportunity and thank you for the encouragement and donations for planting trees in Israel.

In the next few weeks we will spend most of our time learning about Pesah. We will start with learning the four names of Pesah, and their meanings. We will read the story of the Exodus in Hebrew, and we will continue to learn the Haggadah, Pesah songs, blessings, stories and the rituals at the seder. We will cover all 15 steps of the Seder and the students will practice it in class. They will be almost ready to lead the Seder at home.

T’filot

The students practiced reading the Sh’ma’ (not singing it), and have started learning the meaning of this prayer and its importance. We have learned where we find the Sh’ma’ in places like the Tefilin and the Mezuzah. We have also made connections between the M’zuzah to the story of Pesah. While learning the Sh’ma’, we focused on the importance of Hashem Ehad, one God, and on the importance of veshinanta levanecha – the teaching of your kids the ways of Hashem..

Parashat Hashavu’ah

In Parashat Hashavu’ah, we continue the second book Sh’mot (Exodus). We are concentrating on the details of the Mishkan, their importance, who constructed the Mishkan, and why they were constructed. Your child is likely to ask for your help as they build the Mishkan with ordinary materials that they can find at home.

Hani Galili

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

The second grade students love their Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read a story called “Ema Holah” (Mother is sick). The story tells of little Tziporah coming home and finding her mother sick in bed. Tziporah takes care of her sick mother by bringing her hot milk and comforting her. The students not only read the text with expression, but continued to embellish with the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew. The students enjoy using props while performing the stories. The students carefully “track” one another reading the various Hebrew stories. The Hebrew stories will continue to be sent home at the end of the week. Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to your child read the stories and signing the Hebrew homework. The students are also continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script. The students are feeling more and more confident with both their Hebrew writing and reading. I am very proud of the students’ accomplishments!

Art – Ms. Orkin

Students completed drawing a still-life of a toy from observation, using pencil and oil pastel. They then played with the toys. It is amazing how detailed their drawings are!

Students created African masks after studying about an African Plank mask on their second installment of the Art Adventures program.

Students created Purim sock puppets. They drew emotions on the face and painted it. Then they added hair and hat and put a costume on their puppet. Students then decorated the puppets with pom poms, sequins, and oogley eyes.

Upcoming projects include:

We are in the midst of our third installment of the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Art Adventures curriculum on the theme “Let’s Celebrate Life!”

Students looked at:

A Lakota Native American women’s dress from 1880 and an Indian sculpture of Shiva Nataraja from the late 10th century.

Our project will be a beading mosaic picture of Native American Indian design.

Our Passover project will be a painted afikomen napkin for the middle matzah to be hidden in.

Happy upcoming holidays!!

Ms. Orkin

Library – Ms. Oskow

HMJDS Scholastic Book Fair March 25-30!!

Biggest fundraiser of the year for the library

Books available for preschool through adults at Scholastic’s discounted prices. 25% of money collected goes to the library.

Book Fair Hours:

Sunday, March 25 - 9:00 AM-1:00 PM

Monday, March 26 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Class Preview Day

Tuesday, March 27 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Class Preview Day

Wednesday, Mar. 28 - 8:00 AM-8:00 PM – HMJDS Conferences PM

Thursday, March 29 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Conferences PM

Friday, March 30 - 8:00 AM-4:00 PM

Student Preview Days

Each HMJDS class visits the Book Fair Monday, March 26 or Tuesday, March 27. Students write a Wish List of books and may buy books.

Teacher Wish Lists

Teachers post Wish Lists and families can buy books or Gift Certificates to dedicate for classrooms, specialists, or the library.

Contests to Win Free Books

Parents or adult relatives can enter their students in a drawing anytime they stop by the Book Fair together through Thursday, March 29 (once per student). On Thursday, March 29, two students’ names will be drawn to win $25 worth of books—and a winning student’s teacher also chooses $25 worth of books! Students’ names are drawn for other prizes, too.

Additional drawing: for students who design posters celebrating their favorite book to decorate the library. Posterboard available from Ms. Oskow. Posters due by March 22.

Visit the Book Fair Online

http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/hmjds

The Online Book Fair:

• allows your child to send wish lists, and invite family and friends to participate in the Book Fair
• offers an expanded book selection – books for all ages, even adult titles
• is available for an extended time: Monday, March 19 to Sunday, April 8.

Volunteers Needed For Book Fair

• Set up the Book Fair on Friday, March 23
• Tear down the Book Fair on Monday, April 2
• Staff the Book Fair during open hours

Please contact Book Fair Chairs Micki Litton, Beth Jasco or Ellen Berkelhamer – or sign up on the sheet that will be posted outside the library.

Music – Mr. Shaw

During the month of March we will be reviewing the different parts of notes so students can continue composing their own rhythms. We will spend time in class practicing how to draw whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and the quarter rest. We will use these rhythms to write four measure compositions. Children will then use these rhythmic compositions as material to play on non-pitched percussion instruments. I am hoping that these compositions will be ready for the students’ music portfolios so you can see your child’s composition skills at spring conferences. I also anticipate that we may work on the concept of musical style and how the same song can sound quite different depending on musician’s interpretation.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Read lyrics from song sheets.
• Use solfege (Curwen) hands signals to indicate melodic direction.
• Develop the competency to perform music through modeling.
• Gain an understanding of musical style.
• Identify appropriate song styles.
• Read and write visual symbols that indicate rhythm.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

I hope everyone had a meaningful Sh’vat. In my lower school classes we recognized Tu b’ sh’vat by incorporating the holiday theme into our warm-up activity. I also hope that you have been enjoying Adar!

What’s Going On?

Your second grader just finished their rope jumping unit and is now participating in gymnastics. This year we will use the balance beam, vault and the handstand spotter.

In the beginning the balance beam height will be 30 inches. It will be raised six to twelve inches during the course of the unit. Students will be introduced to different balance beam challenges to create two to three different skills in their balance beam routine. This includes the dismount onto the crash mat while landing on their feet without dropping to their knees.

In vaulting students will learn the proper approach to the spring board, hurdle onto two feet and either tuck or straddle over the 24-36 inch vault.

Handstands will be introduced using the wall for support. If your student is capable of supporting their own weight they will be able to use the back handspring spotter.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is penciled in for the week of May 21 so look for volunteering opportunities!

Technology – Ms. Olson

How Do I Find GREAT Websites For My Second Grader?

Have no fear… HMJDS is here! It just so happens that at school your child uses our custom Portaportal website to find safe and age level appropriate websites that are also interesting, educational and fun! If you don’t already have the HMJDS Portaportal set up on your home computer, please follow these instructions:

• Go to www.portaportal.com
• Along the right side you will see a field in a box labeled Guest Access. Click in the box and type hmjds.
• Once hmjds is typed, click visit.

It’s that simple and now your child will be able to access all of the websites that we work on in school and even try out some others… You may even sneak back into the first grade list for some fun games they used to play or up to the grade three list to try something more challenging.

The HMJDS Portaportal site is updated periodically when a new website comes to our attention that we feel is important to share with students. If you know of a site that you feel we should know about and possibly add to the Portaportal, please contact me and I will consider it for addition to our Portaportal.

General Studies – Ms. Goldblatt

Biographies: Developing Non-Fiction Reading and Paragraph Writing Skills

Students will be continuing to develop their reading and writing skills through the completion of the biography research project. We will spend much of March determining what facts are important, summarizing them, and organizing them. Next, students will synthesize this information into well developed paragraphs that feature a topic sentence, strong transitions, and a clincher. Some of the topics researched include early life, accomplishments, and character traits of the subject of their biography. The final product will be the creation of a large artistic representation of their biography subject in their traditional attire. The report will fit inside the clothing. Look for directions to be coming home soon to make the body.

Comparing and Contrasting Shelters: a Science and Social Studies Experience

In March, students will be beginning to apply the information we have learned this year about properties of material and matter. They will learn about the relationship between objects and the materials used to make them. Through discussions and experiments, the children will discover that the properties of a material make it ideal for some uses and less ideal for others. For instance, students will be asked to decide whether metal would be a good material for a window or string would be a good material for a chair? They will explore using materials to build towers, and even a house that can withstand the big bad hairdryer.

Students will be using these principles of science to help them understand the variety of shelters used by pioneers in Minnesota including dugouts, sod houses, and log cabins. They will learn about the typical interior and exterior of these homes and the challenges of living in these types of homes. Students will discover that climate, location, natural resources, and the wealth and makeup of the family are key factors in determining the type of home built by families moving to Minnesota in the 1850s.

In March students will be completing Unit 7 math. They will concentrate on number patterns, computational skills, complements of tens, and the application of mathematics through the use of data. They will continue to use the 100-grid to support their numeration skills and explore patterns of doubling and halving numbers, which will help prepare them for continued work with multiplication and division. Children will also collect and work with real-life data about animals, adults, and themselves. For example, they will collect data by measuring the lengths of their standing long jumps and then find the median jump length for the class.

Students will also begin Unit 8 which reviews and extends concepts of fractions. Specifically, they will recognize fractions as names for parts of a whole. Children will learn that many different fractions can name the same quantity. Students will also explore relationships among fractions as they work with pattern-block shapes and Fraction Cards that show shaded regions.

To work with your child on the concepts taught in this unit, try these activities:

• Review fraction notation. For example, ask: “In a fraction, what does the number on the bottom (the denominator) tell you?” “What does the number on the top (the numerator) tell you?”
• Draw a picture of a rectangular cake, a circular pizza, or a similar food (better yet, have the real thing). Discuss ways to cut the food to feed various numbers of people so each person gets an equal portion.
Read a recipe and discuss the fractions in it. For example, ask: “How many one fourth cups of sugar would we need to get 1 cup of sugar?”
• Compare two fractions and tell which is larger. For example, ask: “Which would give you more of a pizza one eighth or one fourth?”

Hebrew and Judaics – Ms. Etzion

Welcome back to school! Second graders completed their Purim curriculum and celebrated the holiday of Purim school wide as well as in their classroom. We will now begin our study of Passover, in which the story of Exodus will be taught at grade level Hebrew. Passover Seder rituals as well as traditions and mitzvoth will be covered as well. This unit will be studied until Passover break.

The students are very excited to be completing their Ari-ot workbook. Once they have learned how to correctly form all cursive letters. We will celebrate with an Ari-ot party. More details to follow. This month the students will be focusing on creative writing. We are trying to expand on sentence writing and using as many descriptive words in our sentences. The students are learning how to write grade level paragraphs. They are quite excited and confident to be writing in Hebrew! This of course has come with hard work and determination.

The students are preparing for the YOM HASIDDUR performance, scheduled for March 19 at 7 p.m. Please mark your calendars!

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

The second grade students love their Hebrew textbook Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai. The stories and dialogues are performed as Hebrew skits in front of their peers. They read a story called “Ema Holah” (Mother is sick). The story tells of little Tziporah coming home and finding her mother sick in bed. Tziporah takes care of her sick mother by bringing her hot milk and comforting her. The students not only read the text with expression, but continued to embellish with the dialogue spontaneously in Hebrew. The students enjoy using props while performing the stories. The students carefully “track” one another reading the various Hebrew stories. The Hebrew stories will continue to be sent home at the end of the week. Your children are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to your child read the stories and signing the Hebrew homework. The students are also continuing to hone their writing skills in Hebrew script. The students are feeling more and more confident with both their Hebrew writing and reading. I am very proud of the students’ accomplishments!

Art – Ms. Orkin

Students completed drawing a still-life of a toy from observation, using pencil and oil pastel. They then played with the toys. It is amazing how detailed their drawings are!

Students created African masks after studying about an African Plank mask on their second installment of the Art Adventures program.

Students created Purim sock puppets. They drew emotions on the face and painted it. Then they added hair and hat and put a costume on their puppet. Students then decorated the puppets with pom poms, sequins, and oogley eyes.

Upcoming projects include:

We are in the midst of our third installment of the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Art Adventures curriculum on the theme “Let’s Celebrate Life!”

Students looked at:

A Lakota Native American women’s dress from 1880 and an Indian sculpture of Shiva Nataraja from the late 10th century.

Our project will be a beading mosaic picture of Native American Indian design.

Our Passover project will be a painted afikomen napkin for the middle matzah to be hidden in.

Happy upcoming holidays!!

Ms. Orkin

Library – Ms. Oskow

HMJDS Scholastic Book Fair March 25-30!!

Biggest fundraiser of the year for the library

Books available for preschool through adults at Scholastic’s discounted prices. 25% of money collected goes to the library.

Book Fair Hours:

Sunday, March 25 - 9:00 AM-1:00 PM

Monday, March 26 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Class Preview Day

Tuesday, March 27 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Class Preview Day

Wednesday, Mar. 28 - 8:00 AM-8:00 PM – HMJDS Conferences PM

Thursday, March 29 - 8:00 AM-7:15 PM – HMJDS Conferences PM

Friday, March 30 - 8:00 AM-4:00 PM

Student Preview Days

Each HMJDS class visits the Book Fair Monday, March 26 or Tuesday, March 27. Students write a Wish List of books and may buy books.

Teacher Wish Lists

Teachers post Wish Lists and families can buy books or Gift Certificates to dedicate for classrooms, specialists, or the library.

Contests to Win Free Books

Parents or adult relatives can enter their students in a drawing anytime they stop by the Book Fair together through Thursday, March 29 (once per student). On Thursday, March 29, two students’ names will be drawn to win $25 worth of books—and a winning student’s teacher also chooses $25 worth of books! Students’ names are drawn for other prizes, too.

Additional drawing: for students who design posters celebrating their favorite book to decorate the library. Posterboard available from Ms. Oskow. Posters due by March 22.

Visit the Book Fair Online

http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/hmjds

The Online Book Fair:

• allows your child to send wish lists, and invite family and friends to participate in the Book Fair
• offers an expanded book selection – books for all ages, even adult titles
• is available for an extended time: Monday, March 19 to Sunday, April 8.

Volunteers Needed For Book Fair

• Set up the Book Fair on Friday, March 23
• Tear down the Book Fair on Monday, April 2
• Staff the Book Fair during open hours

Please contact Book Fair Chairs Micki Litton, Beth Jasco or Ellen Berkelhamer – or sign up on the sheet that will be posted outside the library.

Music – Mr. Shaw

During the month of March we will be reviewing the different parts of notes so students can continue composing their own rhythms. We will spend time in class practicing how to draw whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and the quarter rest. We will use these rhythms to write four measure compositions. Children will then use these rhythmic compositions as material to play on non-pitched percussion instruments. I am hoping that these compositions will be ready for the students’ music portfolios so you can see your child’s composition skills at spring conferences. I also anticipate that we may work on the concept of musical style and how the same song can sound quite different depending on musician’s interpretation.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Read lyrics from song sheets.
• Use solfege (Curwen) hands signals to indicate melodic direction.
• Develop the competency to perform music through modeling.
• Gain an understanding of musical style.
• Identify appropriate song styles.
• Read and write visual symbols that indicate rhythm.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

Greetings Second Grade Parents,

I hope everyone had a meaningful Sh’vat. In my lower school classes we recognized Tu b’ sh’vat by incorporating the holiday theme into our warm-up activity. I also hope that you have been enjoying Adar!

What’s Going On?

Your second grader just finished their rope jumping unit and is now participating in gymnastics. This year we will use the balance beam, vault and the handstand spotter.

In the beginning the balance beam height will be 30 inches. It will be raised six to twelve inches during the course of the unit. Students will be introduced to different balance beam challenges to create two to three different skills in their balance beam routine. This includes the dismount onto the crash mat while landing on their feet without dropping to their knees.

In vaulting students will learn the proper approach to the spring board, hurdle onto two feet and either tuck or straddle over the 24-36 inch vault.

Handstands will be introduced using the wall for support. If your student is capable of supporting their own weight they will be able to use the back handspring spotter.

Please be aware that Fitness Week is penciled in for the week of May 21 so look for volunteering opportunities!

Technology – Ms. Olson

How Do I Find GREAT Websites For My Second Grader?

Have no fear… HMJDS is here! It just so happens that at school your child uses our custom Portaportal website to find safe and age level appropriate websites that are also interesting, educational and fun! If you don’t already have the HMJDS Portaportal set up on your home computer, please follow these instructions:

• Go to www.portaportal.com
• Along the right side you will see a field in a box labeled Guest Access. Click in the box and type hmjds.
• Once hmjds is typed, click visit.

It’s that simple and now your child will be able to access all of the websites that we work on in school and even try out some others… You may even sneak back into the first grade list for some fun games they used to play or up to the grade three list to try something more challenging.

The HMJDS Portaportal site is updated periodically when a new website comes to our attention that we feel is important to share with students. If you know of a site that you feel we should know about and possibly add to the Portaportal, please contact me and I will consider it for addition to our Portaportal.

General Studies – Ms. Vlodaver

Biographies: Developing Deeper Reading Comprehension, Note Taking, and Reporting Skills

As we begin the month of February, students will be completing their exploration of nonfiction texts through the biography genre. Having read a variety of texts about people across many ways of life, the students will choose one person on whom to focus. They will read one biography of this person and they will be writing a report on this person’s life. In developing the report, students will learn the following skills:

• distinguish between the main idea and supporting details in a non fiction text
• summarize information using Post-it notes
• write a paragraph with a topic sentence.

Students will focus on identifying important events that shaped their person’s life and recording them in sequential order, recognizing the person’s accomplishments, and inferring character traits about the person.

Examining Pioneer Times: a Science and Social Studies Experience

At Curriculum Night, students had a wonderful time exploring:

• ways to change a liquid to a solid while making butter
• mixtures while creating their perfect lemonade
• games played by pioneer children

In February, students will continue to explore the life of pioneers in Minnesota. We will wrap up our exploration of the food of this time period. Some highlights of this unit include:

• making ice cream and/or popsicles
• creating our own version of Stone Soup
• learning about preserving foods.

Next, we will begin to focus on the shelters used by pioneers. The housing of this time period includes dugouts, a simple house built into a hill, sod homes, and log cabins. Students will have an opportunity to build one type of shelter in an integrated unit with their art class.

One of the most exciting things about our pioneer unit is that students are learning many concepts of physical science while investigating the mid 1800s. For instance, students will have the opportunity to compose and decompose several mixtures of solids and liquids. They will also be discovering the importance of understanding the property of a material selected for an item. For example, students will discover that homes made out of sod often did not withstand heavy downpours.

Investigating Geometry

Excitement is in the air as children begin our new unit of study, geometry. Studying geometry helps develop spatial sense and the ability to represent and describe the world. In this unit of study, children will consider five basic kinds of 3-dimensional shapes: prisms, pyramids, cylinders, cones, and spheres. They will sort the shapes, while exploring similarities and differences among them, as well as become familiar with both the names of shapes and the terms for parts of shapes. Children will also study polygons, or 2-dimensional shapes that form the flat surfaces of prisms and pyramids, as they look for examples in real life. Later in the unit, children will explore line symmetry as they experiment with folding 2-dimensional shapes and matching the halves. Children will also cut out shapes and look for lines of symmetry in each shape. Some of the vocabulary introduced in this unit include: line segment, angle, parallel lines, polyhedron, face, vertex, and ray.

Hebrew and Judaics – Ms. Fogelson

Hebrew language

Over the next few weeks, the children will finish the last remaining letters in the cursive Ari-Ot workbook. Through their work in this workbook, the children have mastered reading and writing in Hebrew cursive and learned many new Hebrew words. They enjoy speaking in Hebrew in class as well as writing creative sentences and stories.

Soon, we will begin the Shalom workbook which focuses on a day in the life of a student. This book covers units on the body, food, and clothing, as well as different rooms and objects in the house.

Judaica – Holidays

We recently finished our unit on Tu B’Shvat, the New Year of the trees. The children learned the names of all of the parts of the tree in their singular and plural forms. They also designed their own whimsical trees which they wrote stories about.

Our next holiday unit focuses on Purim. We will expand upon the story of the megillah that the children learned in first grade. As a culminating activity, the children will select one of the central characters to write about. We will also learn about the main holiday customs, read short stories in Hebrew, and sing many happy songs.

Judaica – Parashat haShavuah

At the conclusion of the Joseph unit, the children completed a quite complex assignment. They had to match six significant quotations from the narrative to the correct biblical characters and also sequence the quotations and a series of pictures that spanned four different Torah portions. You can see from the photographs how engrossed the children were in this task.

This month we will shift our focus to the book of Shemot and the story of the Children of Israel and their exodus from Egypt.

• Over the next few weeks, we will learn about the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, a place where the children of Israel could bring sacrifices and feel close to God. In class, we will compare the objects in the Mishkan to those we find in synagogues today. We will also compare the role of the Kohen Hagadol, the High Priest, to that of a rabbi, and the idea of bringing animal sacrifices to today’s practice of reciting prayers.
• We will also read the story of the giving of the Ten Commandments and the children will have an opportunity to think of an 11th commandment that they feel is important and relevant today.

Shabbat Shalom,

Hamorah Shelley

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns either by phone at 952 381 3460 or by email at sfogelson@hmjds.org

Important reminder

Please update your calendars. The Yom HaSiddur program which was scheduled for Thursday, January 19 has been changed to Monday, March 19 at 7:00.

Hebrew – Ms. Taragan

Wow!!!! The second grade students will soon be completing the second book in the three-part-series Kriyah V’od by Shahar and Rena Yonai. The humorous stories and dialogues are thoroughly enjoyed by the students. They continue to perform Hebrew skits in class in front of their peers. A favorite skit was about a mailman delivering a letter to Ziva from her grandfather. The students used props while performing this story for their peers. The students carefully “track” one another reading the various Hebrew stories. The Hebrew stories and dialogues are later sent home. The students are very conscientious about doing their Hebrew homework. Thank you for listening to your child read the stories and signing the Hebrew homework. Their Hebrew reading has tremendously improved throughout year. The students are also learning to write the Hebrew letters in script. The students are feeling more and more confident with both their Hebrew writing and reading.

I am very proud of the students’ accomplishments! Kol Hakavod!

Art – Ms. Orkin

What we’ve been doing in art this month…

• Learned about our first Minneapolis Art Institute Art Adventures art work; The Birthday Party by John Singer Sargent, 1887, and The Blessing of the Tuna Fleet at Groix by Paul Signac, 1923
• Tu B’shvat crayon engravings of trees from Israel

Upcoming units of study include…

• Our next two pieces of study on the theme of “Let’s Celebrate Life” from the MIA will be a painted wooden African Plank mask created in 1960 and a wooden Kundu drum from New Guinea.
• Creating Purim groggers (noisemakers)
• Sculpting shelters and painting with glaze
• Purim sock puppets

Parents, please send in a labeled large white athletic tube sock for your child’s sock puppet in the next week! Also we need cardboard toilet paper tubes for our Purim groggers.

Library – Ms. Oskow

In February, they learn about:

• 500’s – books about Science, including math, astronomy, Earth science, biology
• 600’s – books about Applied Science and Technology, which include books about the human body, inventions, vehicles, farms, pets, and cooking

They also are introduced to Easy Chapter Books about related topics, such as pets.

Last month when they learned about the 300’s—books about Social Sciences (which I explained as “groups of people, and how they get along together”)–second graders enjoyed the special sub-section 398: Folk and Fairy Tales.

HMJDS Scholastic Book Fair Coming March 25-30!!

Biggest Library Fundraiser

The Scholastic Book Fair runs Sunday, March 25 – Friday, March 30. It is the single biggest fundraiser of the year for the library. Books will be available for all ages from preschool through adults, at Scholastic’s discounted, tax-free prices. Shoppers can make purchases for themselves as well as consider donations directly to the library or to HMJDS classrooms. 25% of all money collected will go to the library.

Look for more information following Mid-Winter Break.

Volunteers Needed For Book Fair

Volunteers are needed to help:

• set up the Book Fair on Friday morning, March 23
• tear down the Book Fair on Monday morning, April 2
• staff the Book Fair during the hours it is open

Please contact Book Fair Chairs Micki Litton, Beth Jasco or Ellen Berkelhamer – or sign up on the sheet that will be posted outside the library after Mid-Winter Break.

Music – Mr. Shaw

During the upcoming month students will demonstrate that they are ready to learn how to play the melody to “Plant a Tu BiSh’vat Tree” on the Orff instruments. The students may even play a two-part layered harmony accompaniment to the song. This is challenging for students, as they have to keep a steady beat while other parts play different rhythms and pitches at the same time. I had not anticipated that they would be ready for this level of playing, and I am very impressed by how well they are progressing with more advanced playing techniques. Also during the month, we will be learning how to play more melodies to songs like “It’s Time to Wake Up,” which is a song that highlights information about Groundhog’s Day in the lyrics. Toward the very end of month and when we come back from mid-winter break, we should have a lot of fun when we start working on songs for Purim, such as Hag Purim, Ani Purim, and Mishenihnas Adar.

Featured Concepts and Understandings in Music Class Lessons:

• Sing and play songs that vary in tempo.
• Read simple rhythm patterns that include combinations of half notes, quarter notes, quarter rests, and paired eighth notes using standard music notation.
• Distinguish melodic features: high, middle, and low tones; and melodic direction.
• Read visual symbols that indicate rhythm and pitch.
• Develop the competency to perform music through modeling.
• Learn varied accompaniment patterns.
• Play accompaniment patterns to multi-chord songs.

Physical Education – Mr. Lindquist

I’m happy to say that we made it through the floor hockey unit unscathed and now have switched from competitive team activities to individual challenges such as gymnastics and rope jumping.

What’s Going On?

In gymnastics your second grader begins with strength and balance challenges on the floor mats. They learn about body lines and the importance of rigidity in maintaining balance and control. To assure success at all levels we begin with very basic movements to learn and practice these elements. Students then will proceed cautiously and at their own speed. I’m a firm believer in learning skills in stages, and would never make a student try a skill without proper lead-ups, or do something they are not capable of doing. Our floor challenges begin with basic log rolls to learn controlled rigid body movements. We then add balance into that theme, as it is the root of body control. We carry that theme into the apparatus skills that include the balance beam, vault, and the back handspring spotter. On the balance beam the second graders are required to create a 4-5 skill routine that includes a dismount that they try to “stick.” The balance beam starts out 30 inches high and is raised during this unit to 38 inches, which is very challenging for most students. The vaulting box height mimics the balance beam, starting out at one level and then adding a second or maybe a third.

What’s Next?

Volleyball!

Technology – Ms. Olson

Tick Tock… We’re Almost Done With Tickatok!

We are nearing the end of our traditions project in technology. I’ve enjoyed this project because it’s really the first long term project that second graders get to work on in the lab. It allows them to really get to know a program well and work with it at their own pace. In the coming month, we should be putting our finishing touches on the writing and inserting the pictures that parents have sent in or that students have drawn. If you still haven’t sent in photographs illustrating your child’s traditions, please feel free to email them to me jolson@hmjds.org with your child’s teacher’s name and his/her name listed in the subject line.

Once these projects are complete you will be impressed with the hard work your child has put forth and how important your family traditions are to them. You might even be surprised by some of the things that have made an impression on your child. I know I have seen some beautiful writing and some very special memories written about too!