Garinim

The Garinim children have been actively preparing for Chanukah! We have been working diligently on our Chanukiyot! We shaped and painted them and Morah Elaine sprayed them with a clear shellac. In the Art center we have had the opportunity to glue different shapes to decorate a sevivon/dreidal. We have also painted sevivonim and used glitter and glue on sevivonim and Magen David/Star of David.

In our Practical Life area we have been stringing five red/adom, purple/sagol, and yellow/tsahov beads to a pipe cleaner as a color matching and fine motor skill refinement work. The child may also choose to string the beads in a pattern or just match them. Added to our shelf is a pipe cleaner threading work to sew a pipe cleaner on and off a cube and rectangle.

In our Nature center the plants have been growing like crazy! Our Gerber daisy has a new bloom and the two dieffenbachia plants are growing so many new leaves. The children have been spraying the leaves, wiping them gently and watering them. They love taking care of their classroom plants.

The children helped make a chanukiah for the classroom as well.The backdrop to the chanukiah,each child had their hand painted and everyone had the chance to decorate the poster board.  We painted toilet paper rolls with paint and added glitter to make them sparkle and glued them to the poster!

Wednesday we made our challah dough, which everyone loves to help make.

Morah Lana kindly made our costumes for the Chanukah Production on Tuesday evening, come at 6:00 pm, socialize a bit, drop your child off in the classroom with a white long sleeved shirt and dark pants/leggings at 6:15. After the Garinim perform, we will meet you outside the auditorium so you may get your little one and leave or stay for the remainder of the show! 

Daniel's parents joined us in the Chapel on Friday to celebrate Shabbat and Chanukah! They also helped make yummy levivot/latkes. The children love going to Bet Knesset on Friday. Morah Lana told us about Joseph's dreams and how jealous his brothers were of him. 

Alim

This week we continue to talk about Hanukkah and do fun activities in the classroom.  We have done a ton of practicing as well for the performance.

On Monday,  we reviewed some new activities in the classroom.  We painted some dreidles and added some sequins to decorate the hallway.  We had a new Sound of the Week " Vv". We read the Alphatale Vera Viper Valentine and we reviewed the formation of how to trace it with the Sandpaper letter.  Also, we went down to the gym and visited with Coach Oren.  The children  played a fun game with him.

On Tuesday,  we wrapped our special Holiday gifts that were made by the children and had a nice work day in the classroom.

On Wednesday,  we finished the wrapping of the gifts and had a busy work day in the classroom.  All the gifts went home with families for Hanukkah.

On Thursday,  we went down to the stage in the auditorium to rehearse with Morah Dawn and the other Montessori classrooms.  It was so fun and we had a blast.

On Friday,  we went down to the chapel with our classroom and our special visitor Henry's grandmother went with us.  We enjoyed the parsha with Morah Lana and the other Montessori classrooms.  We came back to bless the Challah and have grape juice in the classroom.  The Shabbat box went home with Yoav and his family.  Shabbat Shalom. 

Alim Judaics  We are getting ready and so excited for Ezra’s Hanukkah production. Alim has been rehearsing every day. 

On Monday we learned the song Twinkle Twinkle Chanukah lights. 

On Tuesday we rehearsed with our props and also learned a new song for some, but old for others called Hanukah oh Hanukah. We had a lot of fun doing the Hora.

On Wednesday we learned how the Hanukah lights are lit and read a special book from Morah Márcia’s home called Macabees.

Thursday was really fun rehearsing on stage. We did a wonderful job! Truly Broadway professionals! 

Friday was a very special Shabat. Henry’s Grandmother joined us and we also went to the kitchen to sing Hanukah songs to the parents that were graciously making us latkes. 

Anafim

This week has been very busy with Channukah prep!  Monday we enjoyed a lesson in how to wrap a present and the children were very excited about this activity and repeated it multiple times throughout the week.  We also got a lesson on how to use edging scissors.  The children were quite excited to see the “design” that they made on the paper when they cut with them. We also spent a lot of time practicing our song for the Channukah production. 

This week one of our friends brought whole carrots in for snack so we decided to take the opportunity to do some food prep.  We brought out our vegetable peelers and scraped the outer layer of the carrots which we then enjoyed them for snack on Wednesday.  We were all so excited to finish up our Channukiyot on Tuesday.  We counted out 9 small nuts and one large one and then carefully placed them onto the hot glue that our teachers carefully applied to our tile hand prints. 

Wednesday we wrapped up our Channukiyot and packed the bags with candles, dreidel, and the paper with songs and prayers on it.  Many hands made light work as the children took the lead in packing the bags and placing the tape on the bubble wrap to protect our delicate projects.  We also broke out our props for the Channukah production and practiced our song in style.  We are having a blast practicing and can’t wait for you all to see us up on the big stage. 

Thursday was busy!  We had a bit of work time and then went down to the auditorium to practice being in the audience and up on the stage.  We watched and cheered on our friends in the garinim class and the alim class before climbing the steep steps to the stage.  Morah Dawn played the keyboard for us as we jammed out.  We are getting closer to being ready for the big day.  After nap we joined the older students in the gym to light the first Channukah candles together and sing some songs.  It was so exciting to be with all of the older students to start off the holiday.

Friday was another busy day.  We were joined in the chapel by Mark’s parents and baby sister.  It was quite exciting when we arrived in the chapel - Rabbi Amanda was there with a couple of Ezra alumni and they had taken out a torah.  Rabbi Amanda had the chance to talk to us a bit about the scroll and what it is made from.  She then gave us some important rules about the torah- no touching the parchment with our hands, you have to be very gentle with it so it doesn’t fall, and we need to respect it and we stand when it stands.  It was quite exciting to see her read a bit from it- in Hebrew of course!  Once they had packed away the scroll Morah Lana took the spotlight again and sang some of our prayers and songs.  After we marched around with our stuffed Torahs she dove into this weeks’ story.   This week we were introduced to Joseph and his beautiful multicolor coat.  We learned about some of his dreams and about his siblings were all very jealous of him.  They became so jealous that they threw him into a hole and told their father that all they could find of him was his multicolored coat.  He was finally rescued by some people that took him to Egypt and this is where our story ended for this week.  We finished up and went back to our classroom for challah and grape juice.  While we were busy in the chapel some of the wonderful Montessori parents were busy in the kitchen making latkes for us!  We went to check on their progress and even sang some channukah songs for them!  We enjoyed the tasty latkes at lunch today and all the children declared them delicious!

Have a wonderful weekend- see you on Monday for more Channukah production prep and Channukah excitement.

Keshet

Channukah is here!  We decoupage / decorated our channukiot, assembled them with magnets - counting and sorting and trying them out.  We’re practicing the candle lighting brachot, singing traditional songs and practicing on stage for TUESDAY NIGHT!!!!!! Thanks to everyone who already sent in their flashlight - it’s been useful practicing with them.  

We made Israeli flags with a little message on the back to Israel, love xxx (they signed their name) - all impromptu as this Keshet class loves drawing flags. We sent these to Israel along with other cards made specifically for IDF soldiers by older grades - ours were generic and we did not talk about the current situation in Israel. 

We played the dreidl game - your children know the rules pretty well, and used the ‘ה’ (take half) as a math opportunity (sharing equally / dividing by two). 

In geography we are learning about our own state and noticed how tiny it is compared with all the states in the USA (Connecticut is the third smallest state). So far we have learned about the flag and what it represents, the state bird - the American Robin, and the state animal - the Sperm Whale. We will continue through next week. 

On Wednesday Shalev’s mom joined us to celebrate his 6th birthday! A wonderful send off to Shalev who joined our class more recently. He and his lovely family are returning to Israel on Sunday - we wish them well and will miss them. 

The latkes prepared by our amazing Montessori parents were the week’s culminating ‘cinnamon sugar on top’! (aka. cherry on top). Delicious and so much fun (for those that indulged, maybe less so for those that prepped and cleaned!) but we did sing Channukah songs to keep you entertained!  Thank you to Andrew Gottlieb-Cohen, Joanna Romberg, Rachel Cohen, Chunying Song, Yagel and Zoharit Twito, Ella Ofek-Geva and Reut Bick.

See this week's pics here https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vxn19w4f3rMRy3VBA