Garinim

We had such a great time together.  We enjoyed the consistency of spending every day together.  This week we focused on snow.  We had fake snow in our sensory table, which was a huge hit, especially since there has not been too much snow outside.  The children loved scooping it up with their hands and packing it into little cups.  Many also enjoyed turning them over to make snow sculptures and some even tried to make snowmen this way.  We read many snow related books including the classic The Snowy Day and a funny book called Snowmen do at Night.  We really enjoyed making our own snowy day pictures using q-tips, pompoms, and a sponge to create our masterpieces.  We also enjoyed adding snow to our handprint trees to make them look like trees in the winter.  We also tried our hand at creating our own paper snowmen since making the real thing was not possible this week.  

Garinim Yoga Yeladim with Morah Sherri - We shared a ‘Winter wonderland’ themed class walking and breathing like Polar bears to calm ourselves.

 We sang a fun song from a Youtube video called, “I’m a little snowman” (to the tune of ‘I’m a little Teapot’.  We sang the song in English and Hebrew which allowed us to practice all of our Body parts, warm winter clothing and winter terms in Hebrew - like a ‘snowflake’ is petite sheleg in Hebrew.  We practiced our ‘Malacheem bi’sheleg’/ Snow angels in the snow/ on our mats and played a balancing game as we balanced a ‘cadoor sheleg’/ snowball (white pom-pom) on a spoon as we walked forward and backwards on our mats and balanced in our Tree poses.

 

Alim

This week has been super fun.  We started our Geography unit on The Continents of the World.  We discussed the Air, Land and Water last week.  Now we are focusing on learning the placement of the continents on the globe and where we live exactly in this big World.   The kids have asked wonderful questions and are all very interested in learning about the world they live in.  There are new works in the Geography section that the children can explore.  The children are learning a continent song to help memorize the names of the continents as well.  The Sound of the Week is “Tt” and we read the Alphatale book When Tilly Turtle Came to Tea. There were Letter formation and Sounds sheets for them to practice.

 

Alim Judaics  - Since we are learning about Winter and snow (Sheleg) - We sang our ‘What’s the weather’ song which the children love. We shared flashcards with the different weather patterns and learned how to say “It is a rainy day or It is a snowy day” - in Hebrew.  We continue to practice our Hebrew words for body parts, winter clothing and winter weather and enjoyed a fun Youtube video called, “I’m a little snowman”, to the tune of ‘I’m a little Teapot’.  We sang the song in English and Hebrew which allowed us to practice all of what we’ve learned over the past few weeks.

 

Alim Shabbat Celebration -  Singing & Dancing to Shabbat, Modeh Ani and Havdalah tunes.  Talking about celebrating the ‘end’ of Shabbat with spices, candles & singing Shavua Tov - wishing all a good week ahead.  We enjoyed reading ‘Lights Out Shabbat’ - set in a winter snow storm ( as we head into our own winter storm this Shabbat) which shares the story of  a family celebrating Havdalah together. 

 

Keshet

The students love experiments, and this week’s Science class was Matter; solid, liquid and gas. After learning, discussing and asking questions, they took turns adding an antacid (‘tablet’) to a bottle of water and then quickly covered the bottle opening with a balloon, trapping the gasses ( carbon dioxide) and causing the balloon to inflate. 

We haven’t had much snow to play in but we sure make the most of it! These cold days created opportunities to ‘ice skate’ and explore our playground in different ways - the changing of the seasons as experienced through the little ones is priceless. 

So with no real snowmen on our playground, we continue with the theme indoors with watercolor snow collages, and using the Snowman song / poem as a backdrop for practicing ‘parts of speech’. We introduced verbs with a red bouncy ball, highlighting verbs as action / ‘doing words’ - you bounce the ball, catch the ball, roll the ball… and the red circle in the Montessori world represents a verb. The students place a red dot above all the ‘doing words’ / action words in the sentence. They are having fun with this, working together with our ‘Build a little snowman…’ poem. 

The children love Kabbalat Shabbat, singing and dancing with gusto, as Morah dawn plays keyboard for us. This week’s Shabbat Helpers were Jakob and Audra. 

Keshet Yoga Yeladim -   Too much fun with a Winter Obstacle/ Olympics Theme - We enjoyed ice skating, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, sledding down a mountain, waddling like penguins and making snow angels ( Malacheem bi’sheleg) in the snow all through Yoga poses.  Motion, movement and magical Olympic fanfare music was the focus. We then calmed ourselves breathing and walking like polar bears through our imaginary winter wilderness. We played snow-ga yoga with white pom-poms / snow / sheleg exercising our toes.  We ended class in our Hibernation relaxation - visualizing ourselves as sleeping bears, calm and quiet breathing deeply in our cozy cave.

See this week's photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/uYi1N2RioiUCJ7AG7