Garinim

It has been such a busy week!  We have started learning about the Human Body.  This week we focused on our different body parts.  We enjoyed many songs at circle time with body parts.  Some included “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” and “The Hokey Pokey”.  The children loved getting up and dancing along to these songs.  We also enjoyed moving our bodies to some other songs as we danced around the room! This week we also started to trace the children on big pieces of paper.  Throughout the week and continuing into next week, the children will have an opportunity to paint their body tracing to be a representation of themselves.  

 

This week we introduced the activity, Cleaning a Mirror.  The children were shown how to clean fingerprints and other shmutz (dirt) off of the mirror so they could clearly see themselves in the reflection.  We also worked on transferring water from one container to another using a medicine dropper.  The children were enamored with squeezing the top bulb and releasing it and watching the water fill up inside (we used colored water so they really could tell).  It was also so fun to squeeze it back out into the empty container.  These activities along with drawing with markers, building with blocks, putting together puzzles and play dough filled up our week.

 

On Thursday we were so excited to head outside into the snow!  The children really enjoyed shoveling it, going down the snow covered slide and pushing wheeled vehicles through the snow to make tracks.  Please make sure to send in snow gear (boots, pants, hats, and waterproof mittens) even when there is only a little bit of snow on the ground because we all love playing in the snow and don’t want to be uncomfortable.

 

Friday brought the start of Shabbat.  This week we listened and tried to follow along to Yadayim Lemala (hands in the air), which is a song in Hebrew that has you put your fingers on different body parts (head, shoulders, etc).  We also said our brachot (blessings) and sang some Shabbat songs at the end of lunch.  We all really seemed to enjoy Bim, Bam this week.  

 

Next week we will continue talking about our Body!

 

Alim-  This week we started the Human Body Unit.  We read books discussing our Five Senses.  The kids really enjoyed this topic.  The Sound of the week was “Aa”.  We read the AlphaTale book The Adventures of Abby the Alligator.   The children had worksheets available for them to practice their letter formation and sounds.  Next week we will continue our human body unit and do an overview on the bones and the organs of the body.  

 

Alim Judaics   -  This week we began to learn our body parts in ‘Hebrew’.  We played Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in English and then learned how to say our Head as ‘Rosh’, Eyes as ‘Ayin’, Nose as ‘Af’ and ears as ‘Ozen’.  With the use of flashcards, we will review these weekly and keep adding more body parts - such as arms, legs, hands and feet.  I asked them to touch their face and say ‘panim’ - I then told them that my Hebrew name is ‘Shayna’ and so my family would call me ‘Shayna panim’ - they thought this was so funny! I asked them if their grandparents squeeze their cheeks sometimes and say ‘Shayna panim’ to them as well, even though their name is not ‘Shayna’ ?  We played ‘Morah Sherri ‘omer’ (says) - such as; Morah Sherri omer yadayim al ha Rosh - or ‘Morah Sherri says put your hands on your head’ etc.. going through many body parts to play the game. 

 

Alim Yoga Yeladim -  We enjoyed a ‘Body/ Mind Awareness’ themed class.  We prepped ourselves with a ‘mindful mind’ and sat with a ‘mindful body’ in easy pose, with our hands in yoga mudra, on the center of our mats - aware of the space around us.  We noticed that our arms (zirote) and our legs (raglyim) were on our mat and not touching others.  We played ‘Simon says’ in English and then ‘Morah Sherri omeret yadayim al ha… (Rosh) to help us learn our Body parts in Hebrew. 

 

Alim Shabbat - This week Oliver & Beau were the Shabbat helpers.  We introduced ‘Havdalah’ to the class and celebrated Shabbat with singing and dancing to Debbie Friedman’s ‘Birkot Havdalah’ song, ‘Take a moment’ , ‘Eliyahu Hanavi’ & Shavua Tov tunes.  We imagined ‘lighting’ the Havdalah candle and singing the prayers, enjoying the sweet smells of the Spice box and envisioning seeing the ‘light’ on our hands.  We enjoyed reading the book, Shavua Tov/ A Good Week by Michelle Shapiro Abraham. 

 

Keshet

Continuing with the unit on Myself, my Family, my Body, we are practicing for our Keshet Zoom program ‘Hashem

Sheli’ (‘My Name’). The children are excited to showcase some of the learning that’s happening at school. 

In science this week we covered the Digestive System- one long tube from the mouth to the end of the large intestine. They were amazed at the length of a five year old’s small intestine - about 14 feet - measuring a length of yarn and then gathering it up and imagining it inside their belly. As each organ is explored, the children color and cut a paper image and glue it onto their paper body cutout. 

If your child brings home something that resembles the bones of a human hand - made with Sculpey and toothpicks, that is exactly what it is! 

 

This week we highlighted ‘quotation marks’ or ‘spoken words’ as we enjoyed a ‘big book’ and practiced all that we have learned thus far - taking turns to come up to the book with a speech mark ( written on a popsicle stick) to identify question mark, period, comma, exclamation mark. 

 

Just as with our English word and picture matches, we are recognizing the written  Hebrew words for colors and, new this week, items in our classroom ( pencil, scissors,chair…) Ask your child what ruler is in Hebrew (סרגל / sargail). 

 

Keshet Hebrew  This week we are continuing with our Hebrew letters and have learned the letter ט (Tet).  We learned Hebrew words that start with that letter including: Tallit, Tavas (peacock), and the Hebrew version of Telephone and Television.  We are also practicing our Alef/Bet Song and talking about our Hebrew names.

 

Keshet Yoga Yeladim -   Our theme today was ‘ I am the Tree of Life’ based on the beautiful book by, Rabbi Mychal Copeland.  Through practicing Tree, Moon, Boat, Downward Dog, Star, Fish and our final Resting pose - we took a journey through our Torah stories learning about Creation, Noah’s Ark, Abraham & Sarah’s Tent, Joseph’s Dreams, Jonah & the Whale and finally rested in ‘Peace’/ Shalom posture - where we learned that the Torah is a Tree of Life, and “all its paths are peace, ‘shalom’.  The word shalom means ‘whole’, ‘complete’ and ‘at peace.’” In other words, our yoga practice can help lead us to a path of ‘shalom’.