Teachers and students work together to create an active and engaging classroom community
Upper Elementary students at Schechter Manhattan actively dive into study as they continue to acquire the skills of independent learners. Close relationships form among students, as well as between students and the two co-teachers who – as in the Lower Elementary grades – work together to plan and teach all the core aspects of the curriculum, in Judaic Studies and in General Studies.
Experience Schechter Manhattan.
Upper Years
Upper Elementary students at Schechter Manhattan actively dive into study as they continue to acquire the skills of independent learners. Close relationships form among students, as well as between students and the two co-teachers who – as in the Lower Elementary grades – work together to plan and teach all the core aspects of the curriculum, in Judaic Studies and in General Studies. Teachers and students work together to create an active and engaging classroom community.
The atmosphere in class is full of dialogue and conversation around tasks and inquiries that ask students to think deeply, and the physical space in the room is set up in ways that make it easy for students to use materials and resources independently, to do their work, and to facilitate their own learning. Often students work in pairs or small groups, eventually bringing their problem solving back to the whole group. Work in each subject area is often organized around large projects that simulate real life scenarios, such as the elaborate bake sale planned in math class or a writing process that is modeled on the ways adult writers express and communicate their ideas in the real world. Similarly, in the co-curricular areas of studio art, music, and physical education, students don’t merely learn about their subject; they are immersed in making art, playing an instrument, and participating in team sports. Throughout these grades, students increasingly become aware of and participate in the extended school and surrounding communities. They continue to be asked to apply what they see in class to what they see in the world around them: their physical world, their social world, their Jewish and ethical world.
Teachers and students work together to build a supportive learning community founded on positive relationships, respectful discourse, reflective practice, and collaboration. Each school day begins with a morning meeting that allows students to greet and engage each other and sustain community before formal learning begins; it works to establish a positive tone for the day. This is also one of the formal forums in which students can offer their voice in classroom-related issues. Other opportunities for student input and choice are found throughout the academic program. Morning t’filah (prayer) also reinforces the sense of community and highlights the spiritual and ethical tenor that defines the classroom culture and guides interactions and learning throughout the day.
Upper Elementary School Grades
UPPER ELEMENTARY YEARS
Third Grade כיתה ג
As the first Upper Elementary year, third grade both continues to build upon the skills and competencies that students bring with them from second grade and, in significant ways, represents a new beginning. Students use the skills they learned in the lower grades – reading in English and Hebrew, writing, and basic math operations – as tools for acquiring new knowledge. They reinforce and extend their schoolwork with daily homework assignments; they undertake longer-term projects and work, individually and in small groups, with greater independence; and they assume greater responsibility for their own materials and belongings. They also undertake their first yearlong sustained community service project as a class, cooking for the Ansche Chesed Men’s Shelter.
ART
In third grade, students learn to observe and offer comment on other’s work. They learn the language of art, what to look for, and how to offer feedback and critique in a constructive and respectful manner. With this in mind, a central unit of the year is a study of Georgia O’Keefe’s work. They look at her large flower paintings, and explore patterns in nature in drawing and painting. Other themes covered during the year include symmetry, patterns in nature, and three dimensional work with clay and/or fabric.
Work relating to the general third grade curriculum is sprinkled throughout the curriculum. Third graders take an annual November trip to the Canstruction exhibit in the Financial District, and explore the sculptural designs created entirely from cans of food.
HEBREW עברית
Third grade students are divided into groups according to Hebrew language proficiency. This arrangement makes it possible for students to study at the level best suited to their needs.
The language series on which the program in these grades is based, and which provides the continuity from class to class and year to year, is Chaverim BeIvrit. A sequential program, Chaverim BeIvrit follows a structured linguistic progression and integrates the four language skills – listening, speaking, reading, and writing – in each unit. Based on the most current understanding of language acquisition in children, it exposes students to multiple genres, including stories, conversations, poems, songs, albums, journals, bulletin board notices, and the like. Students are challenged to speak and write, using the language patterns they are learning in both familiar and new contexts. Additional reading materials and language exercises developed by the school complement the published units and ensure that students have ample opportunity to practice their emerging language forms and structures within a naturally occurring, functional context.
In the advanced classes, students read short stories, write extensively, creating travel pamphlets and short stories, and speak in full sentences using verbs in several conjugations, in all tenses, and in active and passive voices. In addition, they prepare and perform their own plays and make oral presentations.
In the intermediate groups, students review and reinforce their basic reading skills and learn to conjugate verbs in present tense and the infinitive form; in addition, they study agreement among nouns, verbs, and adjectives in gender and number. For all students, spoken Hebrew is reinforced through classroom routines and classroom phrases.
JEWISH STUDIES
In third grade, Torah study focuses on B’reshit (Genesis) 18-25, continuing the lives of Abraham and Sarah and moving on to Isaac, Rebecca, and Jacob. Working in chevruta pairs and guided by their teachers, students read, comprehend, discuss, analyze, and interpret the text, and pose “juicy” (probing) questions and share answers about it.
Among the grammatical skills students learn are identifying the subject and verb of a sentence; recognizing direct speech; transforming the tenses of verbs using vav hahipuch (the conversive vav); and analyzing complex verbs into shorashim (verb roots) and suffixes.
A new subject in third grade is Pitgam (rabbinic sayings), which serves as an introduction to Mishnah. Over the course of the unit , students study a rabbinic saying each lesson, mostly relating to a Jewish value or a moral dilemma. The value or dilemma is often contextualized by means of a written scenario, a story, or a skit. Students then read and comprehend the pitgam using familiar vocabulary and shorashim (verb roots). Following a discussion about the meaning and possible interpretations of the text, the value or dilemma itself, and its application to students’ lives, the students prepare a page illustrating the pitgam.
In t’filah, the third grade students complete their study of the Amidah, learning the full text of each b’rachah, identifying its main themes based on key words, class discussions, and activities, uncovering its personal significance to them, and illustrating it in their individual siddurim. In addition to the Amidah, third grade is also introduced to new sections of the Shema, Hallel, and Kabbalat Shabbat and additional prayers for the high holidays, Sukkot, Chanukah, and Purim.
The third graders’ insights into and knowledge of chagim (Jewish holidays) continues to deepen as they both revisit previous years’ experiences and introduce new aspects: studying basic texts from Rabbinic literature and the Torah. Students are exposed to different interpretations of these texts and form how they relate to our own observance of the holidays.
In Israel studies, the students study the various cultural groups within Israel and learn about their culture.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Writing and reading workshops are coordinated throughout the year. In writing workshop, students use their own experiences to learn the craft of writing both from the writing of professional authors and by living the writer’s life themselves. In reading workshop, they learn to live rich, literate lives by working from their chosen books to become expert readers and to understand the world complexly. At the same time, their teachers model the thinking, language, behaviors, and strategies of successful writers and readers and build communities in their classrooms in which the students can engage in reading and writing text in active, individual, and personal ways.
In reading workshop, students continue to build upon the comprehension and decoding strategies that they learned in the lower grades. Units studied during the year include character, non-fiction, and comprehension strategies. The students keep reader’s notebooks to help keep track of their thoughts and to record their predictions, inferences, and interpretations. In independent book club discussions, students develop ideas and insights that arise from their reading and learn to extend their conversations.
In writing workshop, students learn to build upon the writing process that they experienced in earlier grades. In a workshop setting, they keep writer’s notebooks in which they record entries from their personal experience; choose writing “seeds” that seem promising; expand, extend, and build upon them with detail and description; share their writing with each other and respond to each other’s writing; and edit, revise, and publish their work. They gain experience in writing sentences, paragraphs, and multi-paragraph pieces; work on developing strong beginnings; and proofread for conventional spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.Students also participate in writing clubs, where they experiment with various genres.
Students use many styles of writing in third grade, such as biographies, articles, informational books, reading response, and across-curriculum writing, including writing based on research.
The following routines support and reinforce a mastery of written language: ongoing class work and homework on spelling: a word wall of high-frequency words, spelling explorations based on sounds, direct instruction in spelling rules and patterns, word puzzles, and independent work on personal spelling mistakes.
MATHEMATICS
Third grade continues to place a balanced emphasis on understanding mathematical concepts as well as speed and accuracy in computation. Students work both individually and cooperatively with partners. Key goals for the year include understanding multiplication and division, studying multiplication tables up to 10, adding and subtracting two- and three-digit numbers, and explaining solution strategies orally, in writing, and with pictures. To help students understand new concepts, tangible objects, physical models (e.g., number lines, 100’s and 300’s charts), and arrays are used; to help build fluency in computation, students use flash cards, mental math, and 60-second challenges.
Third graders study the following topics:
- Review and extension of basic skills
- Addition and subtraction of two- and three-digit numbers
- Skip counting
- Multiplication and division
- An introduction to fractions
- Measurement with standard units
- Problem solving using alternative strategies
- Math puzzles
- Multi-step math projects
- Geometry
- Graphing and surveys
MUSIC
In third grade, students are introduced to the recorder. They learn to read, write, and sing (solfege) the notes using the European method of do re mi (A B C). Among the elements they learn are measures, sharp notes, and 1/8 notes. The recorder study also facilitates playing in ensemble and being able to listen to others while playing. They also cover elements of rhythm, composition and ear training. A highlight of the year is preparation for and participation in the Carnegie Hall-sponsored Link Up! program, which focuses on guiding students through learning recorder and playing with others. The unit culminates in a field trip to Carnegie Hall, where students play in an “audience ensemble” of thousands along with the orchestra.
Throughout the year, students are also exposed to different kinds of music, from Baroque to Classical, and Romantic to modern. They also study work from composers from different periods, and create dances and movement in relation to music.
Students of Kitah Gimel continue to build their repertoire of Israeli and Jewish songs, including holiday songs. Students participate actively in the annual school concert in the spring. They perform both a vocal selection and one utilizing the recorder.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Students in third grade continue to strengthen their basic sports and movement skills. Soccer, kickball and softball are among the team sports that are played at this age. As they are bigger, stronger athletes and now more familiar with the rules of different games, students engage in more gameplay than before. At the core of everything we do, is the expectation of menschlichkeit – respectful interactions and sportsman-like play. When needed we stop play for a “teachable moment” and, through discussion explore what happened, why it happened, and what, if anything, could have be done differently. Third grade is serious but fun!
THEMATIC STUDIES, SCIENCE & SOCIAL SCIENCE
The theme in third grade is culture. The students begin the year by inquiring, “What is culture?” Looking at both environmental and cultural influences, they explore a variety of constructs, including language, art, religion, values, and survival needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. They investigate the connections between people and the physical characteristics of the place in which they live.
Following a unit on the geography of the United States and New York City, in which students learn to read maps, the focus shifts to in-depth studies for the class’s exploration of culture. The class focuses on studying a variety of cultures in NYC. Students research specific topics of their choice relating to the culture they are focusing on in NYC. Students explore elements of cultures of New York City, such as clothing, language, values, history, and food. In their research, they learn to read and comprehend non-fiction, identify the main idea of a paragraph, take notes and produce a final product that is several complete paragraphs long. In the process, they learn to manage time and materials, organize an extended project, and work independently.
The children express their understanding of culture in writing, through a creative component, and in an oral presentation. These products are on display at a Culture Fair, the culminating presentation that is a highlight of their culture study and of the third grade year.
In science, students develop an understanding of soil and landforms, tying together the theme of culture and the way the environment impacts how and where we live. They learn about examples of basic landforms, how they form, and how different forces shape them over time. Layers of Earth, rocks, volcanoes, and earthquake patterns are addressed, as well as how weathering, erosion, and even people shape the land. Students use their STEAM skills to design farms that can better withstand erosion and neighborhoods that can better withstand flooding. The unit is supplemented by a study of climate and weather. Students learn about different climates and types of weather on Earth, how meteorologists measure temperature, air pressure, rainfall, and wind speed, and examples of extreme weather. The year will end with a study of plants. Students will study the different parts of a plant and the things it needs to survive. They will explore photosynthesis and the pollination of flowers. Each of the units includes many hands-on activities and experiments, through which students learn about scientific methodology and develop skills in scientific thinking.Students will design an experiment of their choice, planting under different conditions to understand the needs of plants and the role they play in our world.
CODING
Students have a weekly coding class where they explore structures of code such as sequencing, loops, conditionals, and events. Students explore these concepts through a series of “unplugged” games and activities, as well as through iPad-based exercises using block-based languages. Students apply their understanding of coding through game design, digital illustrations, and programming robots to navigate obstacles and follow simple commands.
ART
Fourth Graders work individually or in pairs on a number of projects. Skills develop in various areas, including using a range of materials to create a piece of work, designing and creating Judaic with clay and metal, and exploring the use of layered color painting (by looking at the work of Vincent Van Gogh). One project, related to their classroom study of the Rainforest, uses art as a means of cultural communication. As part of an exchange program with students in the Guatemalan Rainforest, students share aspects of their life and culture through their paintings. Finally, still life is explored through the concept of monochrome and self-portrait is practiced by using mirrors. .
An annual art trip is planned to coincide with some aspect of the classroom curriculum.
HEBREW עברית
Fourth grade students are divided into groups according to Hebrew language proficiency. This arrangement makes it possible for students to study at the level best suited to their needs.
The language series on which the program in these grades is based, and which provides the continuity from class to class and year to year, is Chaverim BeIvrit. A sequential program, Chaverim BeIvrit follows a structured linguistic progression and integrates the four language skills – listening, speaking, reading, and writing – in each unit. Based on the most current understanding of language acquisition in children, it exposes students to multiple genres, including stories, conversations, telephone conversations, poems, songs, albums, journals, bulletin board notices, and the like. Students are challenged to speak and write, using the language patterns they are learning in both familiar and new contexts. Additional reading materials and language exercises developed by the school complement the published units and ensure that students have ample opportunity to practice their emerging language forms and structures within a naturally occurring, functional context.
In the advanced classes, students read short stories, write extensively, and speak in full sentences using verbs in several conjugations, in all tenses, and in active and passive voices. In addition, they prepare and perform their own plays, and make oral presentations.
In the intermediate groups, students review and reinforce their basic reading skills and learn to conjugate verbs in present tense and past tense and the infinitive form; in addition, they study agreement among nouns, verbs, and adjectives in gender and number.
All students work on projects that allow them to apply the skills they learn. For example, students interview Hebrew speaking staff and faculty and create virtual tours of places in Israel using Google Slides. Hebrew is also spoken throughout the day in class routines and in the Jewish Studies program.
JEWISH STUDIES
The fourth grade Torah curriculum continues the study of Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau with a close reading of B’reshit (Genesis) 25-32. Key goals for the year include identifying parts of speech in context; recognizing direct speech and embedded speech and identifying the speaker in each case; and analyzing complex verb forms according to shorashim (roots), prefixes and suffixes, and tense. In addition, students review the use of vav hahipuch (the conversive vav) and ways of recognizing textual problems and anomalies.
Students work together to analyze the Torah text and create their own commentary, as well as to analyze classical and modern commentaries that address the same textual problems that they had identified in their own questions. Their interpretive repertoire expands to incorporate big ideas and essential questions.
A new subject in fourth grade is Mishnah. Students work in chevruta pairs to read and understand the text by identifying key words, verbs, and nouns, compare parts of the text to each other or to parallel texts, and ask and answer questions on the text, and come together as a class to brainstorm and to relate the text to their own experience.
In t’filah, the fourth graders continue to fill in the full texts of prayers that they have already studied in excerpted form. The focus this year is on completing the Sh’ma and the b’rachot preceding and following it. Students identify the main themes of each prayer based on key words, class discussions, and activities, analyze the text, relate it to their own personal experience, and write their individual commentaries on it. In addition to the Sh’ma and its b’rachot, fourth graders also learn new b’rachot for other occasions, as well as new sections of Hallel and Kabbalat Shabbat.
In chagim, students encounter new material and ideas that build upon what they already know: they formally study the laws and selected prayers of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Chanukah, Purim, and Pesach from an Israeli school children’s compendium of Jewish law, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch – M’kor Chaim. During Sukkot, students study what makes a Sukkah Kosher, and then wrote a journal entry from the point of view of the Sukkah. The Pesach unit is focused on the “Seder of the Seder”: what is the order of the seder, and how does that order help us connect to the exodus from Egypt?
LANGUAGE ARTS
In the fourth grade, reading and writing are fully established tools for learning and communicating across the content areas. They continue, as in previous years, to work hand in hand, facilitating connections with one another, not only as skills, but also, through the workshop approach, as coordinated systems of self-discovery and thinking and talking about personal experience.
In reading workshop, key goals for the year include using reading comprehension strategies effectively, including visualizing, questioning, connecting, predicting, inferring, and interpreting; identifying main ideas and supporting details; explaining how a text supports a claim or an opinion; comparing and contrasting characters and stories; and becoming a supportive learning community in which reading experiences are shared. At the same time, the students review and reinforce previously learned skills of decoding, comprehension, and analyzing plot, character, and setting.
Students continue to read many of the same genres they read in previous years: novels, non-fiction books, short stories, biography, and selected poetry. They also formally study reading comprehension as a test skill.
In writing workshop, students continue to use a writer’s notebook as a place to collect inspirations for writing. They then develop them into drafts, and revise and edit them with their writing partners. Genres covered during the year include personal narratives, responses to non-fiction reading, structured paragraphs, and poetry. Students regularly share their writing pieces and celebrate their “published” pieces as a learning community.
Key skills that are introduced or reinforced in the fourth grade include the use of topic sentences and supporting details, writing paragraphs that consist of one complete idea, writing multi-paragraph essays that incorporate introductions and conclusions, using texts to support a thesis, varying word choice and sentence length and structure, incorporating thoughts, feelings, dialogue, and inner monologues, and using quotes and other punctuation marks. Students continue to work on spelling, punctuation, capitalization, vocabulary, language, sequencing, and formatting and presentation. They also gain experience writing in Google Docs- drafting, revising, editing, and sharing their work. The steps of the writing process, with which they are already familiar, become gradually integrated in their writing.
MATHEMATICS
The computational skills learned in fourth grade are significantly more challenging than students have encountered previously; at the same time, the curriculum continues to encourage mathematical thinking and understanding. Students work with tangible objects to support their early learning of new ideas and operations, undertake projects that incorporate real-life applications of the skills they have learned, and create their own problems and games to express and reinforce their grasp of the concepts they study.
Key goals for the year include multiplying two-digit numbers; understanding division; identifying and using equivalent fractions and decimals; computing perimeter, area, and volume; graphing growth; and strengthening word-problem solving skills in all topic areas.
The following topics are studied in fourth grade:
- Measurement
- Data analysis
- Review and extension of addition, subtraction, and estimation
- Arrays (factors and products)
- Multiplication – review of times tables, two-digit computation
- Division
- Fractions, including equivalent fractions
- Decimals
- Line and bar graphs
- Geometry – lines, area, three-dimensional (cubes), angles, triangles, polygons
- Probability
- Solving multi-step problems
- Test preparation
MUSIC
The fourth graders enter their second full year of recorder instruction. They continue learning about the instrument by practicing higher notes, exploring new rhythmic patterns, composing their own melodies and playing them. Students apply their recorder skills to playing pieces in preparation for year two of the Carnegie Hall Link Up! program, as well as the annual school concert. Through this curriculum and program, the students learn about classical composers and their works and come to appreciate music’s building blocks, from the simplest to the most complex pieces. Students study excerpts of masterworks by composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.
Singing is central to the fourth grade musical experience. Students in Kitah Dalet expand their repertoire of Hebrew and Israeli songs, with focus on pitch accuracy, as well as understanding the song lyrics. Opportunities to perform include the Chanukah Zimriyah celebration and the annual school concert.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
In fourth grade, after reviewing basic skills and techniques in various sports, the students move on to formally playing games. These situations give students the chance to practice skills in context and to learn game strategy, teamwork, and sportsmanship.
By the fourth grade, students have developed mastery of basic game playing skills. New sports like volleyball and badminton are also introduced, as well as new structures like tournament-play. In this format, students get an opportunity to compete in several days of activity to promote fair play, healthy competition, and to put previously learned skills to use.
THEMATIC STUDIES, SCIENCE & SOCIAL SCIENCE
In fourth grade, the theme is New York City beginning. The students begin by looking at the geography of New York City in the 16th century and how it has changed. The unit will continue with a study of the Native American tribes of the New York City area pre 1600. Students will look at the geography of New York and develop a sense of how the Native Americans lived. They will explore the customs, rituals, and values of the tribe and try to understand the ways in which the geography, weather, and climate of the time impacted the lives of the people. . Later in the year, they will look at the first the original Dutch settlement in New York, New Amsterdam. they begin a more extended study of immigration. They will consider the expedition of settlers, the conditions they were seeking to escape, as well as the freedoms they were intent on finding. They look more closely at the challenges the new settlers faced in the area and the ways in which they adapted and found solutions that allowed them to prosper. In this study, the students’ first formal introduction to the study of history in which they focus on the skills and tools of the historian, they consult non-fiction texts and conclude the unit with a project on the life in New Amsterdam. The students read non-fiction accounts and answer complex comprehension questions. Additionally, museum visits, field trips, and historical simulations increase their knowledge of the ways in which these early settlers lived.
In their study of geography, students use maps, atlases, globes, and Google Earth to learn basic geography concepts and terms and understand the relationship between culture and geography. Later they explore the layers of the rainforest, understanding how the differing levels of light, among other things, help to shape multiple habitats in the rainforest. As part of the rainforest study, students participate in an art exchange program which matches them with a partner class in a rainforest habitat in Guatemala.
In science, the overarching theme for the year is systems. Students will begin the year with a unit that integrates the study of Native American of New York City. Students learn how culture, technology, climate and environment helped shape the architecture of the people, and create scale models of typical buildings and structures from this culture or time period.
The fourth grade students will move on to study habitats, looking at this theme through geographical and environmental lenses. They study the ecology, wildlife, flora, and cultures of natural habitats, and in connection with these studies, they work engage in long term research project. Students prepare an individual research project, choosing a plant or animal and how it adapts to its habitat, its interactions with other organisms and its future. The resources available to them are primarily books, other printed matter, and the internet. In addition to the written research paper, students communicate what they have learned through discussions and oral presentations, as well as in homework assignments, artistic representations, models, and poster displays.
The year will end with a unit on simple machines in which students understand how parts work together to form a whole. As a culminating project students build Rube Goldberg inspired machines.
CODING
Students have a weekly coding class where they explore structures of code such as sequencing, loops, conditionals, and events. Students explore these concepts through a series of “unplugged” games and activities, as well as through iPad-based exercises using block-based languages. Students apply their understanding of coding through game design, digital illustrations, and programming robots to navigate obstacles and follow simple commands.
UPPER ELEMENTARY YEARS
Fourth Grade כיתה ד
The fourth grade program is rich in content and emphasizes the development of organizational and study skills. Now proficient in basic reading, writing, and mathematics, students build on these skills to analyze texts and ideas, synthesize information, think critically about issues, develop their writing, and support their claims with evidence from the text. Students in fourth grade work over the course of the year to prepare a portfolio of their work. Students thoughtfully select pieces of work and reflect on themselves as learners through that work. Students lead portfolio conferences, in which their parents and their teachers participate, in the spring.
A milestone of the fourth grade is the students’ first experience with external testing, for which they spend time preparing. In addition, students participate in an exploration of water and water habitats as they spend several hours on a schooner. The fourth grade’s yearlong community service commitment is to work with the Ansche Chesed Men’s Shelter in which students plan a three-course menu and spend time cooking and preparing a full meal.
UPPER ELEMENTARY YEARS
Fifth Grade כיתה ה
As the final year of the Upper Elementary Division experience, fifth grade marks a transition toward more independent learning. With the help of their teachers, who scaffold the independent learning skills for them, the students are asked to organize their materials, take notes in class, and sustain work on long-term projects. A key milestone of the fifth grade is a major research project and presentation on immigration, which serves as a stepping stone to the exhibition-based assessments students will undertake in the middle school. Further preparation for middle school experience takes the form of a number of test-like experiences during the year, in which students learn how to prepare for and take a formal test. Other major emphases include the development of an interfaith living museum exhibition through the American Museum for Jewish Heritage, in cooperation with the Al Ihsan Academy, the Islamic Leadership School, and Kinneret Day School, and several community service projects. The students also deepen their understanding of themselves as learners as they continue to participate in portfolio conferences with their teachers and parents and reflect knowledgeably about their academic progress. As well, the fifth grade marks the students’ first formal exposure to Jewish history, health education, and advisory.
ART
The art work of our fifth graders is both art for art’s sake, as well as art that is integrally related to the rich fifth grade Jewish and General Studies curriculum. The creation of Shabbat ritual objects kicks off the formal art curriculum for the year. These items are used throughout the school year for the class’ Kabbalat Shabbat on Fridays. As the students study units in Colonial America, the History of Eastern European Jewry, and Immigration, art creation compliments the learning and thinking they do in those academic areas. Paper quilt designs accompany the study of Colonial America, an artist study of Jewish artist Marc Chagall is part of the Jewish Studies unit (students experiment with paintings that utilize differences in scale and non-traditional colors) and the drawings of artist Ben Shan are used as a reference point for the illustrations that students create as part of their study and research in immigration. Other projects during the year emphasize observation and include a figure drawing exercise and the use of torn paper in collages. A trip to Modern Museum of Art (MOMA) is a highlight of the art experience in fifth grade.
HEBREW עברית
Fifth grade students are divided into groups according to Hebrew language proficiency. This arrangement makes it possible for students to study at the level best suited to their needs.
The language series on which the program in these grades is based, and which provides the continuity from class to class and year to year, is Aleph-Bet Y’ladim Lomdim Ivrit. A sequential program, Aleph-Bet Y’ladim Lomdim Ivrit follows a structured linguistic progression and integrates the four language skills – listening, speaking, reading, and writing – in each unit. Based on the most current understanding of language acquisition in children, it exposes students to multiple genres, including stories, conversations, telephone conversations, poems, songs, albums, journals, bulletin board notices, and the like. Students are challenged to speak and write, using the language patterns they are learning in both familiar and new contexts. Additional reading materials and language exercises developed by the school complement the published units and ensure that students have ample opportunity to practice their emerging language forms and structures within a naturally occurring, functional context.
In the advanced class, students read short stories, write extensively, and speak in full sentences using verbs in several conjugations, in present and past tenses, and in active and passive voices. In addition, they make oral presentations.
Students review and reinforce their basic reading skills and learn to conjugate verbs in present tense and the infinitive form; in addition, they study agreement among nouns, verbs, and adjectives in gender and number. For all students, Hebrew continues to be spoken throughout the day in class routines and in the Jewish Studies program.
JEWISH STUDIES
A new subject in fifth grade is Jewish history. In a two-week mini-unit, students look at Jewish life in Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, using both history and literature.
The fifth grade Torah curriculum focuses on the exodus from Egypt as related in Sh’mot (Exodus) 1-10. Students work primarily in study pairs (chevruta) and small groups to negotiate the text, comprehend it, answer text-based questions ranging from basic comprehension to close analysis, empathize with the biblical characters, pose interpretive questions, and answer them. Students also learn to teach each other passages that they studied in small groups, using group presentations, dramatizations, writing, artwork, and short projects.
In Mishnah, the curriculum incorporates a number of mishnayot and related sources from the Talmud on topics relating to interpersonal behavior. In small groups, students negotiate the text with the help of a glossary, think about the situations and concepts that the mishnah presents, ask interpretive, text-based questions, apply the ideas they discover to present-day situations, and argue and debate the questions, much as the rabbis of the mishnah did. .
In t’filah, the fifth graders add new prayers to their daily liturgy, including birchot hashachar (the first morning blessings) and several chapters of psalms from p’sukei d’zimra. As in previous years, each new text is not only recited with correct intonation and melody; it is also mined for meaning, interpreted, personalized, and placed in the context of the overall structure of the prayer service. The highlight of the year is the siddur ceremony in which the students celebrate their completion of the matbe’a shel t’filah(the main prayers of the liturgy) and demonstrate their readiness to join the middle school minyan. The process begins by reviewing all the prayers that they have learned over the years and then reminiscing about the impressions that these early prayer experiences made on them. They also receive their first published siddur at this ceremony. Additionally, the fifth grade students extend their knowledge of birkat hamazon (grace after meals) to include the full text of the first b’rachah, in addition to the excerpts of the remaining b’rachot that they continue to recite, and they learn a new b’rachah to be recited after eating snacks.
The fifth grade chagim (Jewish holidays) curriculum incorporates most of the experiential elements that students encountered in their earlier years, thereby reinforcing an emotional attachment to each calendar event. At the same time, new concepts and texts are introduced to deepen students’ knowledge and enrich their experience: prior to Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Chanukah, Purim, and Pesach, they complete their study of the laws of these holidays and learn, for example about challenges to Jewish unity during the Hellenistic period by simulating the responses of different sects to the events of the time.
In Israel studies, students explore different Aliyot, immigrations of different Jewish communities from around the world to Israel, through the stories of individual families and reflect on the concepts of home and homeland.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Reading and writing in fifth grade are fully integrated ways of learning and communication. In their writing and reading workshops, the units of study are coordinated so that the same, or complementary, genres and topics are the focus of both reading and writing simultaneously.
Writing workshop begins, as in previous years, from a writer’s notebook containing personal experiences, thoughts, and ideas that are the seeds for essay writing in various forms such as poetry, persuasive pieces, essays, literary analysis, memoir writing, and short fiction stories. The workshop culminates in a full-length independent research project. Throughout the writing units the students develop skills in using sophisticated language and syntax, revising, and editing.
Students learn to expand their writing from several paragraphs to several pages and make effective use of craft moves, such as strong beginnings, beautiful language, transitions, details and description, and figurative language, including similes and metaphors. They continue to use the writing process effectively to plan for narrative and expository writing, edit for conventional spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammatical usage, and word choice, and revise both independently and in peer conferences.
In reading workshop, paralleling the experiences in writing workshop are internet research; themes in fiction; memoir; non-fiction; short stories; and poetry. Student initiative and active learning are encouraged through book clubs relating to genre study. Key goals for the year include achieving high levels of literal and inferential comprehension and an appreciation of literature. Students learn to be actively aware of narrative sequence, character motivation, the author’s message, theme, big idea of a story, and literary techniques; to read with a writer’s eye; and to read between the lines. During read-aloud sessions, teachers model for students the thinking, language, behaviors, and strategies of successful readers. In the spring, students run their own book clubs, where groups read a fiction novel and discuss it. Students improve their active listening and discussion skills, including how to disagree constructively, build on ideas, and extend conversation.
In a unit on internet literacy, students look at the role and function of the internet, safe communication, acceptable use, and good decision making.
Students also study a unit in both reading and writing memoir, in which students read memoirs to study styles and voice, using these skills to craft their own memoirs.
MATHEMATICS
Fifth grade students perform mathematical operations and understand mathematical concepts at a high level. Contributing to this balance of thinking and doing are two extended real-world applications and numerous briefer real-life problems; regular work in pairs and small groups as a complement to independent work; and a continuing emphasis on communicating mathematical ideas verbally.
Key goals for the year include mastery of all four operations in multiple digits, fluency in all basic operations, an integrated understanding of fractions, decimals, and percents, and increased independence in problem solving.
The following topics are studied in fifth grade:
- A review of multiplication and division
- Computation and estimation strategies in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
- Solving word problems
- Fractions, decimals, and percents, and equivalencies among them
- Adding and subtracting fractions
- Multiplying fractions and decimals
- Pre-algebra, including growth patterns, equations, and graphs
- Geometry, including triangles, quadrilaterals, and the perimeter and area of polygons
- Real-world applications (e.g., playground plan, distribution of M&M’s in individual bags)
- Communication of mathematical ideas orally and in writing
MUSIC
In fifth grade, following two years of studying the recorder, students advance to the study of keyboard. Fifth graders begin by learning basic rhythms and the names and locations of notes. Each child works individually or in pairs on pieces suited to his or her own level. These range from simple versions of nursery rhymes all the way up to classical music scores. The students have an opportunity to perform their chosen keyboard piece during the Keyboard Exhibitions, a morning when students present their work of focus to their fellow classmates.
In singing, the students build a repertoire of English and Hebrew songs, with focus on pitch accuracy and lyric memorization. Performance opportunities during the year include the Zimriyah at Chanukah time, the Yom Hashoa remembrance ceremony and the school concert.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Building on previous skills and developing more mature sportsmanship continue in fifth grade. With the addition of our after-school sport program at this age, many fifth graders have the opportunity to join the school soccer, basketball or volleyball team and play in inter-school league competition. Through this experience , students begin to show preference and strength in their desired sport. Besides the continuous skill development, during game play, students are encouraged to take risks. They learn self-awareness and gain self-esteem through trial and error. Students are able to explore movement styles and techniques independently, in pairs, and in a group setting. This self-discovery enables the shy athlete to flourish and the advanced athlete to grow in differentiated ways.
THEMATIC STUDIES, SCIENCE & SOCIAL SCIENCE
In fifth grade, the theme is New Beginnings, which parallels the students’ own growing need for independence and self-sufficiency. The students begin by studying the Native American tribes of the New York City area pre 1600. Students will look at the geography of New York and develop a sense of how the Native Americans lived. They will explore the customs, rituals, and values of the tribe and try to understand the ways in which the geography, weather, and climate of the time impacted the lives of the people. Later in the year, they will look at the first the original Dutch settlement in New York, New Amsterdam. they begin a more extended study of immigration. They will consider the expedition of settlers, the conditions they were seeking to escape, as well as the freedoms they were intent on finding. They look more closely at the challenges the new settlers faced in the area and the ways in which they adapted and found solutions that allowed them to prosper. In this study, the students’ first formal introduction to the study of history in which they focus on the skills and tools of the historian, they consult non-fiction texts and conclude the unit with a project on the life in New Amsterdam. The students read non-fiction accounts and answer complex comprehension questions. Additionally, museum visits, field trips, and historical simulations increase their knowledge of the ways in which these early settlers lived.
A main focus in theme is independent research. Each student chooses a topic of his or her own interest related to an area of the theme. The in-depth and cross curricular research project extends over four months and is divided into stages with interim deadlines to help students plan, manage their time, and keep organized. They learn new research strategies, including highlighting keywords and important information; recording them on note cards; organizing the note cards into an outline before beginning to write; drafting, submitting, and receiving feedback on multiple drafts; and preparing a bibliography. Upon completion, they submit their finished paper, as well as a visual aid; they present their project to classmates, teachers, and parents; and they field questions from the audience at the conclusion of their presentation.
The fifth grade science curriculum is designed to deepen students’ experience with scientific inquiry and train them to think and act like real scientists. Students will begin the year with a unit that integrates the study of Native American of New York City. Students learn how culture, technology, climate and environment helped shape the architecture of the people, and create scale models of typical buildings and structures from this culture or time period. In the winter, the students will explore Space. They will look at the planetary system and research the question: What makes a place habitable? Finally, in the spring, the students study the human body through the health curriculum.
CODING
Students in fifth grade use physical and computer-based tools to explore the world of functional coding. The coding curriculum teaches students how to access and use the main elements and structures of code, such as sequence, conditionals, variables, and loops. Students put their skills into practice by transmitting their codes to single-board microcontrollers, including arduinos and microbits, and using these controllers to respond to real world problems.