The Rashi School | Classroom Blog

You can't have a Pirate Show without a little sword play....  This week the cast and  crew of the Middle School Production of  "Jolly Roger and the Pirate Queen"  had a chance to participate in a Master Class in Stage Combat, specifically sword play.  Jess Scout a certified Stage Combat instructor from the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (METG) spent two hours working with both the cast and crew on the basics and then specifically working on the fight scenes in the show.  Come and see the show on Thursday, Nov. 9th at 7 pm to see how well the cast learned these techniques... but don't try this at home.

Our second graders have been working very hard learning about the brain and also beginning to identify where different parts of the brain are located. In order to help them visualize this, they each created a brain hat! They also learned about what neurons are and that when you learn something new, your neurons fire and create neural pathways as you learn more and more! Below is a model that they each made. To learn more, ask your child:  What part of the brain controls your emotions? (amygdala)  What part of the brain helps you balance? (cerebellum)  What part of the brain stores your memories? (hippocampus)

Check out these researchers! This week, second graders were introduced to World Book Online , a robust online encyclopedia with lots of age-appropriate information and interactive learning games. They'll use this resource extensively throughout their Rashi years for many different research projects. Check out all of our library resources here .  World Book can be accessed at home with a password; check the library section of the Family Handbook for login information for this and our other databases.

Fourth graders went on a massive scavenger hunt around the library, trying to find books meeting certain requirements to earn points for their teams (for example: find a Caldecott award-winning book; find both a fiction and non-fiction book about fish; find a specific word in the dictionary). Competition was fierce as they worked hard gathering books with the highest point values!

Week of October 23rd Ask your child... 1) What are the differences between rectangles and triangles? 2) What number comes before _____ and what number comes after _____? 3) About the story of Noah's Arc. 4) Why do leaves change color and fall to the ground? 5) About Benny's Important Person Activity.   Benny loves dinosaurs, so his parents read a book to the class about them. The children put together puzzles of dinosaurs in small groups.  Then, the children each got a piece of a puzzle and worked as a team to put the giant puzzle together. The finished product!  Thank you, Anna and Jeff, for coming in to do this amazing activity with our class! Stephanie and Stephen leading Tefillah on Monday morning.  What a wonderful way to start our week.

First Grade Rodeph Shalom : "Chasing" Peace! By Stephanie Rotsky October 27, 2017 Over the past three weeks, first grade students have explored the mitzvah Rodeph Shalom which can be translated as "chasing" peace! We read and discussed three books: The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas, The Treehouse by Lois Lowry   and Enemy Pie by Derek Munson. Each story presented compelling and creative examples of how an individual (or an animal!) might go about chasing peace/initiating peace toward another. Students were first challenged to read the  mitzvah  in Hebrew and then brainstorm together what the word  Rodeph  might mean and its connection with shalom. ASK YOUR CHILD...  What brought about such a transformation with the Big Bad Pig? How did the wolves and the pig initiate peace with one another? How was it possible that a tree house almost caused two best friends to stop talking to...