Super Trip to the American Museum of Natural History

                                                                                                                                          11/21/14

Dear Parents,


What an exciting trip we had this week! On Thursday, November 20th, Mr. Berlin and Morah Rivkie took the awesome 5th Grade on the subway to the American Museum of Natural History on 81st street in Manhattan.


The students toured many interesting exhibits: We saw the Biodiversity and Environmental Halls, which offer a vivid and inspiring vision of the spectacular beauty and abundance of life on Earth. We explored the Hall of African Peoples, learning about Africa's cultural heritage from ancient Egypt to more modern times. The hall highlights lifestyles and customs—many of them disappearing—of peoples living in four environments: grasslands, deserts, forests, and river regions. 

The Gardner D. Stout Hall of Asian Peoples—the Museum’s largest cultural hall—showcases some of the finest collections in Asian ethnology in the Western Hemisphere. Some 3,000 artifacts, which represent about 5 percent of the Museum’s considerable holdings, are displayed in the hall. We walked around there as well and studies the way ancient people lived.

Finally, we went to the Hall of North American Mammals to view the stunning dioramas of all the different types of creatures in life-like forms. The students had such a good time that they didn't want to go back to school! Below, please find some pictures of our fantastic excursion....

Best,
Mendel Berlin

Math Class

As we learn math there is a real positive energy flow. The students are excited to learn and to acquire the knowledge. They are motivated to do their work and master the skills being taught. As a reward for completing all their work students are occasionally allowed to shoot some hoops with our classroom basketball.
We are continuing to build the 5th graders math skills.  We have been working on division of multiples of 10. Students know how to divide large numbers by first dividing by the multiples of 10. My goal is for the students to use this skill when solving all types of math examples and problems. So when they in the middle of solving a multi-step problem, and they need to divide a large number by a multiple of 10, they won't get side tracked with a long division example, or make a careless error with an answer with an incorrect number of zeros.
As students work in class I point out to them how they can use these skills we have learned. So when I see a student multiplying 12 x 20, and working it out on his paper- I will stop him and say, well, how else can you do this? 12 x 2, you know is ? and then they realize that they can multiply mentally 12 x 2 = 24   24 x 10 = 240.
Simultaneously, while we are still working  on perfecting the task of long division, we are moving ahead and working on learning new concepts. We began the concept of Order of Operations. I showed the students how if we don't follow a specific order when simplifying numerical expressions, different order of solving can yield different answers, hence the need for a specific order for operations. Students were introduced to My Dear Aunt Sally- PEMDAS. and the correct order to follow when simplifying.
The Test on Monday is not on the complete Chapter 2, but only through lesson 2.5.
Have a wonderful Shabbos.
I look forward to meeting you all at Curriculum Night.
Mrs Neuman