Garinim

This week's theme was space. Our two and three year olds focused on the bodies we can see in our sky during the day and at night- the moon, sun, stars, and even clouds. We introduced these words in English, Hebrew, and American Sign Language. We have been singing songs about the moon and stars, and taking note each day about what we can see in the sky, which has led to more discussion about weather, as well. 

The children are progressing so nicely with their Montessori work! This week we introduced a tricky activity that had many of them focusing quite intently. The children used a small spoon to scoop foam stars out from a bowl of dark, glittery water (which looked a little like a nebula!), carefully drain the water from the spoon on the side of the bowl, and set the stars aside on a dish. This was a lot of steps to remember and required so much attention. It was a favorite for the week with many coming back every day to try it again and again. We also progressed our stringing work from pony beads on a pipe cleaner to beads of various shapes and sizes on an elastic cord, which was a welcome challenge for all of the little fingers hard at work!

On Friday, amid our Shabbat celebrations together, we welcomed a new friend who came to visit! Everyone was excited to greet our new friend Ethan and show him our classroom and playground. Ethan will start school with us on Monday and we are all so happy to have him!

Judaica:

This week we introduced the study of the moon, stars, sun and sky (translated in Hebrew as well). We made moons and stars in the sky using aluminum foil and paint. We created winter/choref collages utilizing burlap, corrugated board and ripped paper with glue. The creations are displayed in the classroom, a photo will be in this week’s pictures.

It was our turn to make challah, which is the highlight of the week, welcoming in Shabbat. We sang Shabbat songs as we were braiding the challah and everyone was singing away.

I had great sous chefs preparing our snack this week. The children enjoyed peeling oranges/tapuzim, slicing apples/tapuchim and peppers/peepal!

Anafim

Wow, we had such a busy week.  We had a lot to do and with one less day it sure kept us moving fast.  This week we took off into Space!  We dove head first into talking about planets.  Some popular work this week was using dot markers to make pictures with corresponding colors on the outline of dots, creating a sun craft, and matching small model planets to photographs of the planets.  The children are beginning to know more and more details about each planet, especially that Earth is our home!  We enjoyed singing and listening to a planet song by Soundplay Australia.  The children loved how upbeat it was and were often heard singing the chorus while doing their work.  Here is the link to it on youtube (and the lyrics are there too!) https://youtu.be/OvibDDlpOKM 

This week we also looked at the letter sound “p” and spent some time looking at the sound pouch. 

In gym class this week Coach Oren set up a little relay race for the children.  We split into two teams and each team lined up behind a cone with a milk crate in front of the cone.  When he said “go” the first child in each row raced out across the gym to another milk crate full of balls and had to select a ball and race back to their line and drop the ball into the empty milk crate.  The next child in line then got to go.  The children were a little slow to get into this new game, but soon they understood the idea and were quickly racing back and forth until the original milk crate was empty.  We then emptied the two crates back into the original one and started all over again.

On Thursday Morah Dawn brought back the egg shakers.  We have learned so many different ways to play the egg shaker.  Ask your child to show you baby bird, windshield wipers, up and down and in and out.  With these moves we did different rhythms and then once we had a good feeling of the different rhythms we listened to a couple of popular songs to try to follow the tempo of those.  Whew, who knew playing the egg shaker could teach you so much musical theory!

This week our class once again came together to make challah.  The children really delight in the weeks that we get to make it and are always so excited to know who we will share with.  The children continue to help prepare snack every day and we owe you all a huge thank you for providing such wonderful fruits and vegetables for our class to share together.  

Friday we were joined for Shabbat and in the Chapel by Mika’s mom and dad.  Morah Lana read a book to us all about the 10 plagues in Egypt.  We learned that every time Moses asked if the Jewish people could leave, the pharaoh said no no no and so G-d sent another plague.  The children delighted in being able to say no no no every time!  This story, like so many other bible portions, left off on a cliff hanger and we only heard about the first 9 plagues.  We are so excited to go back next week and hear about what will happen next. 

Next week we will continue talking about space and the planets and introduce stars and the moon.  Have a wonderful weekend, shabbat shalom.  

 

Alim

We continue to talk about Space.  I think all the kids know the Planet song by heart.  

We have been having so much fun with this Unit.  The Art shelf was changed with different Space art!!!! We pretend to be astronauts and fly into space when we discuss the planets.  It’s been fun and exciting. 

On Tuesday,  we enjoyed a relay race with balls with Coach Oren.  The kids were all giggles and had a blast!!!! 

On Wednesday we discussed the parsha of the week.   Also, we talked about the 10 Plagues.  There was an Art activity with these Plagues. The children colored these sheets in and some even made bracelets to wear.  We read the book Let my People Go 

On Thursday, Morah Dawn came to visit us.  She did a fun game with the notes and the disney song from Moana.  They loved it!!!! Also,  we had a very nice visit from an author named Ruth Bahar.  She read the book she wrote called Tia Fortuna’s New Home.  It was a heartwarming story about tradition and heritage.  The children really enjoyed it.  

On Friday,  We went down to the Chapel with  Emily’s  family.  We sang wonderful Shabbat Songs with Morah Lana and talked about the parsha with the children.  The Shabbat box went home with Emily’s family and we can’t wait to hear about all the adventures with Emily and our fox friend “Shual”.  Have a nice weekend.

Keshet

Keshet kids each made their own analogue clock (watercolor) which we laminated, and added an hour and a minute hand.  We continue to practice counting in fives as we work our way around the clock, minute by minute and then by fives.  We learned “O’Clock” (including the spelling) and took turns moving the clock hands from 8 O’clock when we arrive at school, 9 O’clock when we share news and talk about the date and weather, 10 O’clock when we write in our journals and then choose Montessori activities, 11 O’clock when we do science…

In science this week we are learning about our planet, Earth; the layers of the Earth: inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust.  We learned about our planet consisting of a large land mass (called ‘Pangea’) and how over millions of years, cracks in the land and rifts filling with water / sea separated the land mass into smaller areas and eventually into the seven continents that we have today. We learned about tectonic plates and how mountains were/are formed, and of course, volcanoes!  We made a salt dough volcano and added water, dishwashing liquid, red food coloring, baking soda and vinegar…and added dry ice for a spectacular volcanic eruption! 

On Thursday we enjoyed a visit by the author, Ruth Behar, who wrote a book Tia Fortuna’s New Home, A Jewish Cuban Journey. 

On Friday Morah Helene visited and brought in her autoharp.  The children really enjoyed singing with her and pressing the buttons as she played.  

In Hebrew we are learning a song about some primary colors and what colors they make when they mix. The children are getting so good at recognizing letters and their sounds and they are having fun taking turns being the “teacher” and asking each other “ma ze?” 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/GGAgfi9ATsq5mU9h8