Garinim

What a wild week! We started the week with snow on the ground and ended it with lots of puddles and rain! The children enjoyed their recess time whether it was outside in the snow or wet weather, or inside in the 'afterschool room' or the gym! In fact, we kind of enjoyed the variety!!

This week we began lessons practicing daily at circle time how to greet someone with "good morning" or "boker tov." It's actually a lot for our young ones! We make sure that we are looking at the person we want to greet, and we say good morning and their name. The other child makes sure they're looking at the person greeting them, waits until they are finished, and then says good morning back, using their name as well. It's still very much a work in progress, but we hope to have it just right by the end of the year. 

On our sensorial shelf we introduced a new work. The children use pegs and a gradient strip to match colors in a gradient. We are starting with just one gradient and will add more as they get comfortable with it! Some of the colors are very similar, so it takes careful attention and visual discrimination in order to make sure you've found a match. 

The 12 piece puzzles were another popular activity this week. Some children have really mastered these, so we will be adding some 24 piece puzzles next week, keeping the 12 piece out for those who are still working on it. 

While it was fun to have such unpredictable weather this week, we're hoping for some nice clear days ahead so we can get back to the playground every day!

Garinim Judaics:

What a crazy week of weather this week! We played in the tiny bit of sheleg/snow, they had such a great time! They tried making snowballs, but didn't have much success! We talked about rain/geshem yorad and we jumped/ledaleg in very muddy water/mayim! The children were soaked  but had sooo much fun! The children were the best weather forecasters this week whether it was sunny,cloudy, snowing or raining. We practiced saying the words in both English and Hebrew! 

We read so many stories about Tu B’Shevat!  In the Art center some of the children made almond trees. They painted the trunk/geza and glued pinkish tissue paper to the anafim/branches. All the children had fun painting a live branch with pink and yellow for buds and then glued green/yarok alim/leaves. They learned that in Israel it is spring and that trees/etzim are being planted and new trees are blossoming. We talked about the importance of caring for our trees and protecting our world. Thank you to everyone for contributing to our  Tu B’Shevat Seder! The children sang and ate so many yummy fruits. Morah Lana led us throughout the Seder drinking all four cups of yummy grape juice/wine/yayin!

This week we made our challah dough and baked it on Thursday. The children ate a lot of challah on Friday. 

 

During drop off on Friday all the Montessori children were waiting in the hallway before heading into their classrooms were singing Bim Bam and Rabbi Amanda was so excited to hear the ruach/spirit of the children singing, She taught us a days of the week song using our thumbs! It was great seeing the Garinim singing away, because the children knew that song! We marched down to the Chapel on Friday singing Shabbat songs on the way. Aurelia's Abba joined us in welcoming Shabbat. Morah Lana put on a play on the Bimah about the parsha this week! She told us how the Hebrews had to leave Egypt/Mitzrayim very quickly, so they could only take matzo with them! We learned about how the Hebrews followed a cloud and fire in the desert until they came upon the Yam Suf! She explained that there was food called manna and that it tasted like whatever you would have liked to eat! Hashem then split the Yam Suf so the  Hewbrews could cross safely to dry land. This ends the Parsha this week, stay tuned for more.

Alim

This week we talked about TREES, celebrating Tu BiSHvat .

On Monday, we talked a lot about Trees. In Science we discussed the parts of a tree.  There were booklets available for the children.  Also,  a single sheet for the younger children to color.  We read Tree books and why they are so important to us.  We went to visit Coach Oren and played four corners.

On Tuesday, we had a group circle and went over the  Sound of the Week "Jj". We read the alphatale book: The Jaguar Jamboree.  There were new sound sheets and new letter formation sheets available for them.

On Wednesday,  we talked more about trees from all over the world and why trees are very important to us.  We discussed how trees play a critical role in cleaning the air that we breathe, filter the water we drink and provide a  habit to animals. We had a long work morning.

On Thursday,  we had Morah Dawn come to visit us.  She reviewed the BOOM Sticks again with the children.  They had a blast.

On Friday,  we went down to the chapel with the rest of the Montessori children.  We enjoyed the Parsha with Morah Lana and then came back into the classroom.  The Shabbat box went home with Henry.  We can't wait to hear all about the adventures he had with Shual (our fox friend).  Shabbat Shalom.

Alim Judaics  Chag Sameach! 

On Monday we practiced our Tu B’shvat seder song called “Garden Song” by Arlo Guthrie.

We learned some words about trees and the environment in Hebrew like: tree - etz; recycle- michzur; garbage- pach.

More practice again on Tuesday and we read two wonderful books: 

ThankYou Tree by Gail Langer Karwoski and Picture a Tree by Barbara Reed.

On Wednesday guess what? More practice! We were only a day away from our seder. We read Happy Birthday Tree by Madelyn Rosenberg.

Thursday was our Tu B’shvat seder at the gym. We sang songs, ate a wonderful feast and listened to Morah Lana teach us about the holiday.

Shabbat is here! Shabbat is here! We gathered in the chapel to pray, sing and listen to the parsha about Moses and the Hebrew people, and then back in the classroom we ate a delicious challah and drank grape juice.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Anafim

Woah, we finally had a full week of school again.  This week was spent talking about trees and Tu B’shevat (Jewish Arbor Day).  We looked at the differences between coniferous (evergreens) and deciduous trees (ones that leaves fall off) and worked on classifying pictures of trees into the two groups.  Some of these were a little tricky but the children looked very carefully, taking in all the clues.  The children looked at if there were leaves or needles, if they were still green in the snow or empty branches and more.  We looked out our classroom window to see if we could classify the trees we could see outside.  We are lucky enough to be able to spot both kinds from our classroom window, much to the delight of the children!

Monday was pretty chilly and we weren’t able to get outside so we were all very excited for gym class with Coach Oren.  This week we again played 4 corners.  Most of the children enjoyed this game but all had a lot of energy so we ended the game a bit early to have a chance to just run around the gym.  In our classroom we enjoyed pretending to be trees and the children enjoyed coming up with items that we get from trees; almonds, apples, pears, bananas, mangoes, wood and more!

Tuesday we focused on the different parts of a pine tree.  We looked at the roots, trunk, branches, fascicles, needles, crown, seed and cone.  The children were very excited to see real photographs of these parts and then to match the pictures and words up with 3 part cards.  The class favorite was definitely the crown of the tree and the children kept joking about it being a king or queen.

Wednesday we spent some time looking at the “g” and “v” sound pouches.  We enjoyed naming all the objects in the two pouches and then sorting them back out listening to the starting sounds of each object and matching them with the proper pouch.  We also enjoyed making our challah dough, measuring out all the ingredients and cracking in the eggs.

Thursday was Tu B’Shevat and we joined the other Montessori classes in the gym for a lovely seder.  We were all so excited to try so many different foods from trees.  Thank you all so much for sending in everything to make our seder such a lovely event.  Once we finished the seder we went back to the classroom and were right in time for music class with Morah Dawn.  We again practiced our solfege with the boomwhackers.  This week we did the whole scale and everyone had a turn with a variety of the tubes.  We were all so excited to be able to go outside and play in the mud.  We have never seen the sandbox so busy!

Friday was another busy day.  We were joined in the chapel by Mark’s parents and sister.  We heard the next piece of the Torah and this week we heard about the Hebrews leaving Egypt and how they were guided by a cloud during the day and fire at night.  They then came upon the sea of reeds and Moses raised his staff and the water parted for the Hebrews to cross on dry land.  Once on the other side Moses put his arms down and the water closed and the Egyptian soldiers were covered in water.  Back in the classroom we gathered on the rug for Mark’s birthday celebration.  The children were excited to hear the story of Mark and then we enjoyed some cupcakes from Mark and his family.  The weather wasn’t great so we joined Alim in the gym and had a wonderful dance party with them.  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, we will start learning about the body next week.

Keshet

The Keshet students recite the Shema every day during morning tefillah.  We spoke about the meaning and that it is the most important prayer. We are instructed to post the Shema on the doorpost - the entry to your house, and many people have one on their bedroom door and on other rooms in their house.  They all made a mezuzah cover and we included a small printout of the Shema on regular paper and placed it within the cover.  Our version is symbolic - a kosher mezuzah (the Shema) is printed on parchment paper, which can be purchased online. 

In Math we continue learning about fractions, particularly ¼ and ½, counting in 5’s and putting all that together in understanding an analogue clock. The children watercolor painted their own clock, numbered it accordingly and added moveable clock hands. We practiced ex. ‘5’O’clock’ and the digital version (ex. 5:00) with understanding of different times of day. We’ll keep the clocks at school another week as we work on this.  

We spent much of this week talking about Israel and the early pioneers, who arrived with a dream to turn the desert land into a land of milk and honey.  We read Joshua’s Dream, (early pioneers in Israel).  We discussed irrigation and moving water from the Mediterranean Sea inland, planting trees in Israel, the seven species: wheat, barley, dates, figs, grapes, pomegranates and olives, and the importance of trees in our world. We’ve been singing traditional TuB’Shvat songs in Hebrew, and gardening / planting songs in English and shared all of this at our TuB’Shvat seder on Thursday.  We learned about the four types of fruit: with a peel, with a pit, fruit that can be eaten whole and the fourth category - food made from wheat.  Ask your child about Honi HaMa’agel, and the carob trees he planted.  We too, planted carob ‘seeds’, but ours did not take 70 years to grow… we planted ours in soil (pudding mix), watered ours (with milk) and enjoyed a delicious end of seder treat. 

This week's pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/uVFCNX3gFyWM4g6z5