Garinim

On Wednesday morning the children were very busy opening and closing containers and snapping and unsnapping a dressing frame and some children tried their hands at buttoning and unbuttoning! They were very busy and happy to be back to their normal routine in school!

On Thursday Morah Dawn brought in egg shakers for us to play. She told us all the rules about how to use the egg shakers. We learned about the four different sounds a shaker can make; salty shaker, baby bird, windshield wiper and lastly the weight lifter shaker. Morah Dawn also reviewed what piano and forte sounds are. 

Friday we were off to the Chapel to sing our favorite Shabbat songs along with the other Montessori classrooms. Morah Lana shared a bit of the Parshat Miketz story with us in the Chapel today. Briefly, Joseph was rescued out of a pit by the Egyptians (that his brothers had put him in) but then placed in prison. The Egyptians did not know what to do with him! The Pharaoh (King) heard that Joseph could interpret dreams so Joseph became an advisor to Pharoah. There also was a famine at the time and Joseph's brothers went down to Egypt  to buy food to bring back to their father, Jacob and their family. Joseph recognized his brothers but they didn't recognize him. We then returned back to class where we enjoyed more singing and eating yummy challah!

Alim

This week was super fun and very busy in our classroom.  We have been enjoying singing and dancing with Hanukkah books and songs.

On Monday,  we rehearsed in the auditorium with the other students for the performance as soon as we got to school.  Once we got into the classroom we reviewed the new Sound of the Week "Ss" and read the alphatale story called Silly Seal's Sandwich.  We went to the gym that morning and played a scooter game with Coach.

On Tuesday,  we had a dress rehearsal in the morning.  Tuesday evening was a huge success with the children.  They all did such a wonderful job.

On Wednesday,  we had a busy work day in the classroom. 

On Thursday,  we celebrated Yoav's birthday with his parents.  The children enjoyed a delicious treat.  Then we had another busy work day and Morah Dawn came into the classroom.  She talked about egg shakers and volume.  The children had so much fun. 

On Friday,  we went down to the Chapel with Lily's mom for Shabbat.  We enjoyed Morah's Lana's parsha and then went back to the classroom to bless the challah and had grape juice.  Have a nice weekend.  Shabbat Shalom.

Alim Judaics There’s no business like show business! Morah Sandy and I are so proud of our amazing performers. 

On Monday, after our run through rehearsal, we did our Hanukkah prayers and read Hanukkah Hop by Erika Silverstein.

On Tuesday, we read Hanukah Hamster by Michelle Markel and talked about pets being Jewish.

On Wednesday we started our challah dough, read I have a little dreidel by Maxie Baum, and danced to the tune of I Have a Little Dreidel. 

Thursday is challah braiding day and we sang Hebrew songs while taking turns braiding.

On Friday we celebrated Shabat with Lily’s Mom, heard a wonderful story from Morah Lana at the sanctuary and read Hanukah Moon by Deborah da Costa. 

Shabat Shalom Alim! 

Anafim

What a week! Monday was rainy to start the day, but that didn’t matter because we had things to do!  After inside drop off we quickly got ourselves ready, used the bathroom and lined up at the door.  We ventured to the auditorium for rehearsal on the stage.  We watched as the Garinim class, Alim class and Keshet class all had their turns on stage before grabbing our guitars and sunglasses and rocking out.  We learned how we would enter the stage and how we would depart.  Once we had practiced we went back to our classroom and had snack all together because we needed to get ready for gym class.  This week we played scooter tag.  There were 4 blue scooters and the rest were yellow.  If you were on a blue scooter you were ‘it’ and had to tag someone on a yellow one.  Once tagged you switched scooters and the new person was off to tag someone else.  Back in the classroom we enjoyed a group time, and noticed that it had stopped raining.  We finished up and got ready for outside.  Back in for lunch and the rest of our day. 

Tuesday was the big day!!  We all came to school with such excitement and energy.  Once inside we once again got ready to go down to the auditorium to practice.  This time, however, we were going down with the entire school.  We enjoyed seeing the beginning scene and watching all of the older children.  We did our run through and went back to the room for a bit of work time.  It was so hard to focus on our work with all of our excitement but we managed.  We finished up our day and said bye for now before returning in the evening.  We all entered so excited to share who was going to watch from our families, brothers, sisters, moms, dads, grandparents and more!  When we got word we quickly lined up and walked down to the auditorium and found our spot in front.  We patiently waited for our turn to shine and then got up on the big stage. Man these children did an amazing job!  We hope you enjoyed watching us as much as we enjoyed being up there!  The energy that everyone brought was amazing!  They were/ are little stars.

Wednesday we welcomed a new friend to our classroom!  Rene Loch joined the Anafim family.  The children are enjoying getting to know him and he is learning all about our classroom.  Welcome to him and his family.  We enjoyed a normal Wednesday, doing work and making challah.  We enjoyed some Channukah themed activities in the classroom as well.

Thursday we also enjoyed a normal work time.  A letter sound matching game was introduced that was quite popular as well as a dice latke game.  We braided and baked our challah as well.  We also had music class with Morah Dawn.  This week she brought egg shakers and we learned to play our instrument at the different volumes that we have been learning about.  There are so many different methods to play the egg shaker and we enjoyed testing them out for the different volumes.  Ask your child which is their favorite- baby bird, weight lifting, windshield wiper and more.

Friday was lovely.  We welcomed Benji’s dad into our classroom and he joined us down to the chapel this week.  This week Morah Lana continued on with the story of Joseph.  We reviewed what happened last week; that his siblings had left him in a hole and Egyptians wandering by had heard him crying and rescued him.  The story picked up with them bringing him back with them and locking him up in prison.  He spent a long time there and of course some of the guards got to know him.  They learned of his talents with interpreting dreams.  Pharaoh had several dreams that had left him puzzled and the guards suggested that he speak with Joseph to see what these dreams meant.  Pharaoh finally ended up doing so and Joseph told him that these dreams meant that there would be 7 years of lots of food followed by 7 years of famine.  Everyone was very concerned about this interpretation but decided to listen to Joseph and there was a lot of food.  They decided to store this food in a big silo and keep some for the coming 7 years of famine.  Because of Joseph the Egyptians were prepared and many other nations came to them for help.  At this point Joseph was trusted and the people had to ask Joseph for help.  Some of the people that came to him were his siblings.  They did not recognize him but he did recognize them and that is where our story ended for this week.  Back in the classroom we enjoyed our challah and grape juice before going to work.  Have a wonderful weekend. 

Keshet

This week of Channukah presented a VERY excited group of kindergartners, completely enthralled as they sat and watched the bigger kids rehearsing for the Channukah production.  We took our turn on stage, practicing multiple times and it paid off! The Channukah production was a wonderful display and the Keshet kids sang out loud and proud! 

We played the dreidel game,  completed Chanukah puzzles, made a tangram dreidel, a 3-D dreidel… We joined the older grades at 3:55pm each day to light the candles and sing Channukah songs.  

In Geography we completed a study of the state of Connecticut, and put together a Connecticut booklet, including the state flag, the state bird (American Robin), state animal (Sperm Whale), state insect (Praying Mantis), tree (White Oak) and flower (Mountain Laurel) - they were fascinated to hear that all parts of the plant are poisonous, and that the Cherokee used the Mountain Laurel leaves as an analgesic (which was a discussion in itself!).  

As a group we are playing games to understand the concept of division, referring to it as ‘sharing’. The children each decorated three faces and used buttons to follow along as we told a story ex. 12➗3 = ___ and they recorded their answers. 

See this week's pictures here https://photos.app.goo.gl/ipHWvPcNSNkWGhHG9