Garinim

It's so wonderful to have everyone back after what we hope was a wonderful two weeks of rest, family time, and holiday celebrations! Also nice to have some spring weather to enjoy as well. We left school with heavy winter coats and hats, and returned with much lighter attire and a few very enjoyable playground days this week. 

During circle time this week we talked about what everyone did over the break. Most everyone talked about having Passover seder with their families, and some traveled a bit- some on airplanes! Some children shared special outings to museums, farms, movies, or the aquarium! One of our favorite things to hear about was Liora sharing that she became a big sister over break!! Liora was so proud to show off pictures of her family with her new baby sister Ari, and children and teachers alike loved "awww"ing over the tiny baby! Congratulations to Liora and her family!!!

We also took some time to review how to use the materials in our classroom. Two weeks is a long time to be away, and some of us had forgotten how to unroll and roll a work mat. After a lesson on Thursday morning, by Friday everyone was doing a fantastic job remembering what to do.

We enjoyed reading many books about springtime and animals this week, including The Lamb and the Butterfly by Arnold Sundgaard, illustrated by Eric Carle. The children even had the opportunity to make a lamb craft in the art area this week!

In music class with Morah Dawn, the children continued to learn about the terms forte and piano, or loud and soft. They each got the chance to play the bongos either piano (soft) or forte (loud) and did a great job with it! Morah Dawn gave them all homework to practice either piano or forte at home this weekend. (Be prepared, I think most of the class liked forte best!!)

Judaica:

On Monday the children helped to prepare snack. They cut and peeled grapes and clementines. 

On Tuesday we reviewed the words cow/parah and duck/barvaz with a math lesson.

On Wednesday we made lambs/taleh with glue, cotton balls and scissors. The children enjoyed whisking bubbles with a whisk! We also made yummy challah.

We finger painted this week which everyone loved. The children also helped to transplant our plants in the classroom!

We practiced the Mayim dance as well.They like going in and out of the circle, we’re still working on holding hands in a circle.

Thursday we baked our challah.

Friday Silas’ mom Phoenix visited us for Shabbat.

Morah Lana led us singing all of our favorite Shabbat songs and read a book called ”Rosie Saves the World” byTammy Herman.

Alim

We had a great week back from our Spring Break.  On Monday, we reconnected and talked about our rules and manners in our classroom to be safe and happy.  All the children enjoyed being back.

On Tuesday,  we played a fun musical game at gym class.  It was similar to Musical chairs.  It was very fun and the kids enjoyed it.  Lots of smiles and giggles.

On Wednesday,  we discussed the Omer.  The children were explained that on the second night of Passover we start counting the days of the OMER.  We count starting one day at a time until we reach 49, then celebrate on the 50th day being Shavvot, when Moshe brought down the torah from G-d on Mount  Sinai.  We started an Omer chart in class, reinforcing learning the numerals in Hebrew.  Each week we work on divine attributes such as kindness, keeping boundaries and discipline, balance and harmony so we can merit receiving the Torah.

On Thursday,  we worked on fun butterfly suncatchers.  Everyone had a chance to paint and decorate a butterfly.  We discussed signs of Spring as well.  Morah Dawn came into the classroom and discussed "Forte" meaning loud and "Piano" meaning soft.  Everyone had a turn with the drums.

On Friday we went down to the chapel and enjoyed the company of the other children in Montessori. We sang Shabbat Songs together with Morah Lana and enjoyed the story ‘Rosie saves the World’, by Debbie Herman .  The shabbat box went home with Denny.  We can't wait to hear about all the adventures he goes on with our fox friend, Shual.

Anafim

We were all so excited to be back together this week.  The children eagerly entered the classroom sharing bits and pieces of what they all did during our 2 week break. 

This week we started to talk all about the season of spring.  On Monday we reviewed all 4 seasons and looked at pictures, of all the seasons, for clues in the picture and decided which season it belonged in.  Some of the pictures were easy to tell the season (children building a snowman, swimming in a pool, playing in leaf piles, and a bouquet of flowers), however, some of the pictures were a little trickier (a girl looking at a bug on a rock).  The children really enjoyed this and eagerly placed their cards and helped each other figure out which season their card belonged in.  This was added to our work shelves this week and many children took it out to give it a try on their own or paired with a friend.

Every day at circle since coming back from break we count the Omer together.  These are the days between leaving Egypt (Passover) and receiving the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai.  The children are excited to count together every day, adding a piece of paper every day to cover up a square on our chart. 

On Tuesday we created a list of things that happen during spring, check out what your children came up with:

1.       Flowers grow/ we plant flowers

2.       We see butterflies, insects, ladybugs, etc.

3.       It rains a lot/ we play in the rain

4.       Leaves grow back on trees

5.       We see a lot more birds around, including robins (not Sophie’s mom)

6.       It gets warmer

7.       We can wear less clothing

8.       We can plant vegetable seeds

9.       Start a garden

10.   Wild animals have babies

We also read the book A Seed is a Promise by Claire Merrill.  This is a wonderful book that gave us a lot of information about how plants grow from seeds.  While reading this book we read about different parts of a flower.  Well we had to check this out for ourselves; Mark had brought in some daffodils from his garden so we immediately grabbed one and used that to look in person at the different parts of the flower.  We saw the petals and stem from the outside and then we carefully broke one open to look at the stamens and pistil and looked to see if we saw the egg cell.  We talked about how the flower seeds can be fertilized, and how pollen can travel from one flower to another. 

Also in this book they talked about an experiment with lima beans.  You leave the lima bean overnight in water and the next day cut it open and you will see a little sprout starting to grow.  Well this was all very exciting to think about so of course we had to grab some lima beans and try it out for ourselves.  We quickly located some and added them to water.  Thankfully we did 4, because on Wednesday when we went to cut it open we did not see a sprout.  We were a bit disappointed but decided to leave the rest soaking and check back on them later in the week.  Friday during circle we once again checked on our beans and guess what? This time there was a little sprout growing from the inside of our lima bean.  The children were so excited to see it!

Wednesday we learned a new art technique, bleeding paper.  We used tissue paper and water to decorate diamond shaped paper to make beautiful tie-die like kites.  We first painted an area of our paper with water, then added some tissue paper on top, painted more water on top and then left the whole thing to dry.  Once it was dry the children enjoyed peeling off the used tissue paper and loved the result they were left with.  We then embellished the kites with some yarn cross sections and a long kite tail. 

In music on Thursday Morah Dawn brought some bongos.  We used these bongos to review the dynamic markings that we had been working on before break.  The children loved getting to bang on the drums loudly and quietly and were very focused in trying to play them at the appropriate volume.  The children did receive a bit of homework from Morah Dawn.  They were instructed to think about all the dynamic markings and come up with which one is their favorite.  Next class they will then play the bongos at this level and the rest of the class will have to guess what their favorite volume is. 

Friday brought the beginning of Shabbat and we were joined by Mark’s parents in the chapel.  This week Morah Lana read a story that tied in with Earth Day and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).  The story was all about ways that Rosie (the main character) wanted to help her community, but she kept neglecting to help out at home when asked.  She soon learned that it's good to help people in your community but make sure to balance it with home as well.  It was a lovely story for this time of year.  

 

Keshet

Welcome back after our Passover break.  We started counting the Omer (from the second day of Pesach for 49 days until the next holiday of Shavuot) with the children reading the bracha and then adding a numbered ‘stone’ to our Har Sinai. 

We learned about light: transparent light that passes through (glass), and opaque.  We read about rainbows and how and why they are formed, and created our own with paper towel and markers, placed in water and watched  the colors move across the paper towel and over to meet the corresponding colors of the rainbow.  We did rainbow math - numbers that make up 10. 

Friday offered us a beautiful sunny day - the perfect day to experience the wonders of a spectroscope. Using recycled paper towel tubes and colored paper tie dyed from a previous rainbow science experiment, we inserted a CD, and the sunlight reflects off the mirrored CD,  diffracts the light (separates the colors) and presents a rainbow! Ask your child for a demonstration. 

Sunday, April 22 is Earth Day and we are exploring ways to help save our planet. We learned about landfills and incinerators and how they work. Conversation continued with clothing and how we pass  on to others in our family and even to people we don’t know.  We talked about creating a recycling mural, which may land up being a playground or entire village!  Well done to families for doing their part and NOT sending snack or lunch items in  non-reusable containers. It may take a while to build our village with the empty tissue boxes and odd bottles that are collected at school !! ;) 

Continuing with our talk on Earth, we read about ‘The Boy Who Loved Maps’, by Kari Allen and then took a walk through our hallways, noticing doors and classrooms, bathrooms, the gym… all the way to the office, and came back and drew our own maps. 

We are enjoying Spring and collected some daffodils from our school garden and placed them in a vase for ‘Still Life with Daffodils’ paintings.  

The children are playing a version of ‘Go Fish’ working in pairs with the Hebrew letters - enthusiastically playing while practicing their letters. 

We continue to practice the concept of subtraction with storytelling , number lines, and containers of little objects with equation cards - 15 varieties of these ‘stories’ to practice with. They record the answers as they work with the objects to reinforce the concept and equate that with the written sum. 

 

Almost forgot… we started reading ‘Charlotte's Web’, by  E.B. White and will continue each week. They listened attentively and are looking forward to more…

 

Enjoy this week’s photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/cFeEHoywMEWo8V9Z6