Garinim

The children were so excited to be back at school and in their routine of being with friends! A few of the children shared what they did during the break and how they celebrated the New Year!

We added a new Math activity on how to assemble a snowman identifying one small head, one large body and a larger bottom! The children were able to add arms, nose , smile etc to create their own snowman!!! We also started out the week by making challah dough! 

Morah Dawn joined us for music on Thursday and we sang and played with an egg shaker!! Ask your child if they sang a song or just shook the shaker…We braided our dough into challot and had a pre Shabbat dance party! 

We had fun dressing up as cross country skiers on Friday! We had to put on skis, gloves, goggles and used ski poles to trudge through the snow!

On Friday we headed on down to the Chapel to welcome in Shabbat with the entire Montessori community! We had so much fun ushering in Shabbat with all of our favorite Shabbat songs. Morah Lana shared with us the Parshah Hashavuah as well. 

Shemot (“Names”) is the first Torah reading in the Book of Exodus. It opens describing the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt. Moses is born, placed in a basket on the Nile, and adopted into Pharaoh’s household. He later encounters God at a burning bush and begins his mission of demanding that Pharoah let the Israelites go. We all headed back to our kitah/classrooms to eat the yummy challah we made and also celebrated Ira’s 3rd birthday!!! Thank you so much to Ira’s family for the delicious cupcakes!!!

 

Alim

Happy New Year!!!!.  We started off the New Year off by talking about Kindness and Friendships.  

On Wednesday, we reconnected with our classmates and talked about how much we missed one another.  The children had a big discussion on what they did over the break. We had a nice chat on how to treat one another and the importance of being kind to each other.  We talked about ways to be safe in our classroom.  Also,  we talked about how we are a classroom family. The children were introduced to new activities in the room.  We talked about our new Space Unit.  They were taught the Planet song.  Ask them about it:)

On Thursday, we went over more new activities and had a long work time. Morah Dawn came into our room and we went over musical rhythms with the egg shakers. The kids enjoyed it. 

On Friday,  we went down to the Chapel and enjoyed Shabbat with our other Montessori friends.  We blessed our Challah and enjoyed the grape juice.  The Shabbat box went home with Yahav this week. Have a lovely weekend.  

Alim Judaics Welcome back everyone! It was so exciting to see each other again. I missed you all! We started learning the morning prayer Mode Ani and attaching it to the Shema. We talked about the seasons and started learning some Hebrew winter vocabulary. We discussed where in Israel it actually snows and we watched a story called: Grover goes to Jerusalem. 

We love celebrating Shabbat and listening to the parsha at the sanctuary. The week was short but we sure had fun and learned a lot. Happy new year!!!!!

 

Anafim

Happy 2024 everyone.  The children were quite excited to return to school on Wednesday.  There was lots of chatter about what everyone did while school was closed.  All the children had the opportunity to share a little something about their time away.  Many children were a little nervous about standing up in front of their peers, but everyone took a turn!  A job chart was introduced to our class this week.  There are 8 jobs and the children will rotate through having off duty days and being line leader, door holder, calendar helper, weather helper and more.  This week we spent talking about the season of winter.  We worked on sequencing getting on snow gear (first having on warm clothing, then putting on snow pants, third putting on boots, fourth putting on a coat and zipping it up and finally adding hat, scarf and mittens).  This was great to think about before the snow comes so that we are all prepared.  We also spent some time matching pictures of snowflakes and learning to draw snowflakes as well.  We made challah this week and all the children were very excited to help with this process.  Friday we were joined in the chapel by Maya’s mom and dad and brother.  We listened to Morah Lana tell the story of baby Moses and how he was saved.  We then came back to our classroom and had Maya’s birthday celebration.  She turns 4 this weekend! We enjoyed hearing details of Maya growing up and excitedly ate cupcakes and mandarins with our challah.   We had so much fun in this short week and cannot wait to come back next week to continue talking about winter and arctic animals.

 

Keshet

Welcome 2024! A quick review of a short week back together…  Zeva Barasz joined our Keshet class and everyone welcomed her warmly. We’re back to 10! 

In English we’re focusing on reading and this week’s words were ‘ea’ words.  As we progress, we incorporate sight words and everyone is excited to be reading, at whatever level is best suited. 

In Math we are counting in 5’s and incorporating tally, ‘marshmallows in mugs of hot chocolate’ - counting and recording in 5’s and completing practice worksheets.  

In Geography the Keshet kids are completing their continent globe of our world - Earth. This has been a drawn out project with continent pin-pricking, flags and information, with pictures and experiences within countries on all of the continents.  

The Parsha this week is Sh’mot (Names) and leads us to the well known story of baby Moses and the story of his life growing up in Pharoah’s palace, observing Hebrew slaves being mistreated by the Egyptian task masters, leading to Moses fleeing Egypt and his call from G-d to lead the Hebrews to freedom. G-d gave Moses three signs that miracles could happen - ask your child for clarification!

Some photos of this week https://photos.app.goo.gl/DD2gK1KxWbajYUBu8