Garinim

This week we put our animal unit on hold to begin getting ready for Purim! While Morah Elaine kept the children very busy with songs and stories and the creation of crowns and groggers for the big day, the children also enjoyed some bright, colorful, and fun additions to the other shelves around the classroom. 

In practical life, children practiced dry pouring with tiny creamer pitchers filled with colorful sequins, practiced opening and closing a coin purse to put in and take out some beautiful gems, and slid colorful beads onto pipe cleaners. 

On our art shelf, they enjoyed rolling out some play dough, cutting a small circle, and filling and forming Hamantashen, and a Purim matching game was added to the math and science shelf. 

But the most popular activity of the week was our rainbow rice sensory table! The children loved scooping, pouring, and funneling the colorful rice. We even managed to keep *most* of it in the sensory table!

Next week we will continue to get ready for Purim, with a little bit of learning about domestic animals sprinkled in. 

Judaics:What fun week this has been! The children were very excited to make ra’ashanim/groggers/noisemakers for Chag Purim. We made crowns and headbands to remind us how Queen/Malka Esther saved the Jewish people that lived in Persia, from the wicked Haman.  The children also made chocolate play dough hamantaschen in preparation for the big roll for next week. We will actually make and get to eat some delicious Hamantaschen. 

We read several Purim stories and practiced using our ra’ashanim getting ready for Purim next week! The children knew exactly what to do when they heard that name, HAMAN!!!

At our gathering time we have been learning some Purim songs. We are starting out with My Hat it Has Three Corners/Lakovah Sheli.

 

Wednesday was challah dough making for Garinim! Abba’s and  Ema’s, please remind your kiddos that we always wash our hands with soap/netilat yadayim im sabon!!

Thursday we bake our challot and they proofed so much that the challot were too big for the pans!

On Friday Aurelia’s Savta joined us for Shabbat in the Chapel and in the classroom! Morah Lana described the priestly garments that were worn in the Mishkan and how Hashem's presence filled the Mishkan. Back to the classroom for some yummy challah and apples. We even had honey to dip (we love dipping). It was such a beautiful day that we had our Shabbat dance party outside! The children made a long line to dance to shoftem mayim in the gorgeous warm sunny day.

Alim

Monday-

This week was all about Purim.  We read stories about Purim.  We had a grogger craft we started with the children that involved spooning beans into a cup and taping it with another cup on top to be used as a grogger. There was a new sound of the week “Aa”.  We read an AlphaTale book called The Adventure of Abby Alligator.  There were letter formation sheets and sound association sheets for that sound for the kids to practice.    We went to visit coach Oren and did a relay race with the class.

Tuesday-

With our Geography unit we still are ‘in Europe’.  Some children are pin punching out the continents and others enjoyed working on the animals of Europe.  Also, we decorated the groggers with colorful masking tape and gemstones.  

Wednesday-

We had a busy work day in the classroom. There was a buzz of learning in the classroom.

Thursday-

We continued our Purim project of decorating our groggers.  

Friday-

We went down to the Chapel with the rest of the Montessori classes to enjoy Shabbat songs with Morah Lana.  Sophia’s mom joined us for Shabbat and the Shabbat box went home with Sophia and her family. We look forward to hearing about what happened over the weekend with Shual.   

Alim Judaics This week we dove right into Purim. We made our groggers, learned new songs and read some cool stories.

We began the week with the introduction of our main Purim characters. We had an improvised puppet show and pretended the Purim story was a reality show. 

We read “ The Purim Superhero “ by Elizabeth Kushner; “It’s Party Time - a Purim Story” by Jonny Zucker and rocked out to the tunes of Leitzan Katan Nechmad, Chag Purim and Sisu et Yerushalaim.

We celebrated Shabbat in the chapel with all of our friends, listened and helped Morah Lana with the parsha. In the classroom we had Sophia’s Mom as our guest for kiddush. 

Shabat Shalom.

 

Anafim

We had such a wonderful week together!  On Monday we excitedly welcomed a new friend into our classroom, David Baum.  The children were already familiar with him as many of them knew him from the playground, last year and afterschool; and were so excited to welcome him into our Anafim group and show him around our classroom. 

This week was spent working on our grogger covers and starting to put those together.  The children are very excited to have a chance to fill their tin can with rice, dried beans and pasta and hear the noises that these make. 

During gym class on Monday we once again enjoyed a scooter relay race, grabbing a bean bag from the crate and zooming back to our line to drop off the bag and give the scooter to the next friend.  The children were definitely feeling the effects of the time change and it was one of the slowest relay races we have ever seen!

This week we practiced singing several Purim songs including “my hat it has 3 corners” “hakovah sheli shalosh pinot” and “chag Purim”.  We will continue to sing these songs next week as well as we are excitedly getting ready for Purim. 

Unfortunately Morah Dawn was sick on Thursday so we didn’t get to see what the new instrument will be.  We missed her dearly but were excited for a little extra time out in the gorgeous sunshine.  It was so lovely and warm and the children were all so happy to ditch their jackets and run around in the nice warm air. 

Friday we were joined for Shabbat by Jasper’s dad and sister.  We went down to the chapel and this week the parsha is more about the mishkan.  We saw how they had four tall poles with fabric draped over the top.  They then added the two tablets of the Ten Commandments to the mishkan.  There was a cloud that rose above the mishkan so that the Hebrews always knew where it was.  

 

Keshet

This week we welcomed Morah Moran into our Keshet class and we’re all comfortably getting to know one another! 

We’ve been doing social circles each morning, checking in with our feelings, sharing our thoughts, while making sure not to use specific names!  I think they are really getting the idea - now to keep putting it into practice!

We completed our Purim background mural and are having fun preparing for the Purim schpiel, practicing our parts, singing and happily crafting - making our Purim character groggers. The Keshet Purim Schpiel is on WEDNESDAY, March 20 at 10am.

We continue to learn about the human body, this week learning about the Circulatory System.  The heart has the most important job, pumping blood all around the body.   Ask your child what the heart does. They found it so interesting placing their hand over their heart when sitting, and later after an exercise work up of jumping jacks, 20 jumps, jogging on the spot… If you walk in our hallway you will see their body cut-outs, now including the Digestive System and the heart, colored, cut out and pasted in place. 

The 100 piece 4’ body puzzle with muscles, veins, bones is keeping them very busy! 

In Math we made Subtraction Bracelets, using beads to figure out the answers, recording the equation and placing the ‘answer’ number of beads on the pipe cleaner.  We continue to work with money and some are counting and exchanging coins, a few students are calculating the ‘change’ (subtraction). 

See this week’s pictures here https://photos.app.goo.gl/GkBmKuxyuP2bk5an6