Upcoming events:
Friday, October 30–Halloween–We will celebrate Halloween on Friday. Students are welcome to wear costumes related to the 3rd grade curriculum.
Tuesday, November 3–La Dia de los Muertos–Students may bring framed photos of loved ones who have passed, anytime through next Monday. They will be invited to share with our class in the coming week, prior to our full school assembly on 11/3.
Morning lesson:
This week marked the beginning of a new block: practical math with focus on measurement. The introduction to time measurement began with the four cardinal directions. The children learned that if you are in the city of Chicago and know the direction of our beloved Lake Michigan, then you know which way is east and subsequently the other three directions. East is where the sun rises and the day begins. The first drawing in our new morning lesson book is of a sunrise on the water. From the cardinal directions our focus then shifted to the moon, its phases, cycle and connection to the months of the year. Through our study of the lunar calendar, we reviewed the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and the Hebrew months of the year. Since the Jewish calendar follows the cycle of the moon and each month is 29 or 30 days long (the cycle of the moon is just over 29 days), an extra month is added occasionally to help synchronize the lunar calendar with the solar, Gregorian calendar. A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me’uberet and is considered lucky. We are lucky to have both a leap year and leap month in the upcoming year.
If you know which way is east, then the poem below will help you identify if the moon is waxing or waning.
O Lady Moon,
Your horns point to the East,
Shine, be increased.
O Lady Moon
Your horns point to the West,
Wane, be at Rest.
We ended class on Friday with a story about Night and Day chasing each other around the world. Each is carried in a cart pulled by a magnificent horse. Here is how the story began:
In old times, long long ago, when Night and Day were young and foolish, and had not discovered how necessary they were to each other’s happiness and well-being, they chased each other round the world in a state of angry disdain; each thinking that he alone was doing good, and that therefore the other, so totally unlike himself in all respects, must be doing harm.
The story ends well with Night and Day discovering that they rely on each other to create the beauty that is seen on earth as a result of their work. This week, our focus will be on the sun and the methods in which we keep track of time.
Math skills:
On Tuesday, the children were introduced to vertical multiplication with regrouping. This was brought through an image of a house with a narrow staircase (picture house in the Netherlands with a pulley on the facade). Lord Multiplication lives in the 1st and 2nd floor of the house and Count Addition in the “add-ic”. Whenever a number is multiplied and the part of product must be carried or regrouped to the attic to be added, it is placed in a bucket and pulled to the attic where Count Addition lives. Eventually the image of the house will disappear and vertical multiplication as we write will be all that is left. What remains is the need for organization for the work to be clear and accurate. Daily practice will continue and soon the work will evolve into double digit multiplication.
Spelling words:
- first
- third
- thirty
- birth
- bird
- chirp
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
Times Tables:
The children made flash cards for the 4’s on Thursday. They are encouraged to bring them home and use them as a method of review. Starting this week, we will shift our focus towards 6’s.