Garinim

This week was all about musical instruments! Through their work with the musical instrument nomenclature cards this week, many children have learned the names for instruments like the snare drum, piano, guitar, cello, flute, saxophone, and xylophone. 

We also learned about the banjo. The children looked at photos and videos of it being played, compared it to a guitar, and listened to banjo music. Then we got to make our very own banjo using recycled materials! The children were busy all week decorating wooden sticks for the neck of the  banjo, and then on Thursday we assembled them using rubber bands for the strings and a jar lid for the body. Thank you very much to those who brought in lids! 

We then had a jam session together with our hand-crafted banjos. Please be on the lookout for our music video in the photos at the bottom of the blog!! :)

We continue to practice the convention of saying "good morning" to one another each day at circle time, and it's getting better and better as time goes on. This week we saw some children who were reluctant to try it in the past give it a shot and they did beautifully!

Some highlights this week have been the children enjoying working together on large floor puzzles, and making lots of artwork with bright colors! We may have only just begun to get wintery weather in March, but as our parsley plants finally begin to sprout, we are preparing for spring in our classroom!!

 

Judaica:

On Monday we read a book called,”This is the Picnic Bear and the Picnic Lunch”, by Sarah Hayes and Helen Craig. The story repeated many Hebrew words that we have been learning throughout the last month! The children are getting a better connection to the vocabulary.

On Tuesday we discussed what we do not eat on Pesach and read, “What I like about Passover”, by Varda Livney.

On Wednesday we made everyone’s favorite challah dough. We read a book called,”Afikomen Mambo”, by Rabbi Joe Black. We also danced to the Afikomen mambo which is a cute song!

On Thursday we baked our giant challot.

On Friday we went to the Chapel to enjoy a wonderful Shabbat program. We learned about how the entire community helped build the Mishkan! Shabbat Shalom!

 

Alim

This week was all about Musical Instruments.  We had read some fun books about this subject.  We talked about different musical instruments as well.  

On Tuesday, we played in the gym.  Coach Oren was absent so we still played a couple of games.  We did a fun freeze dance with music and then a racing game with the scooters.

On Wednesday,  we had a regular fun day.  Lots of work in the classroom.  We had many Montessori lessons that day.  Also, It was our classroom's turn to make Challah this week. 

On Thursday,  Morah Dawn came to visit and she worked on musical notes with the children.  The kids are starting to really understand the notes and their value.

On Friday,  we went down to the chapel and enjoyed seeing the rest of the Montessori children.  We sang songs and listened to the Parsha.  This week Pearl got a turn with the Shabbat box.  We are looking forward to hearing about her adventures.

 

Anafim

This week was all about musical instruments in our classroom.  On Monday we looked at pictures and models of instruments and worked on learning their names and matching the model to the picture card.  We also discussed the different features of the instruments.  The bell, the buttons and valves, the string instruments, a slide, the mouthpiece, and instruments that use a reed. 

Tuesday there was a lot of excitement in our room with the snow falling outside!  The children were so excited to put up ‘snowy’ on our weather chart for one of the few times this year.  This day was all about listening to the classic Peter and the Wolf.  The children were enthralled listening to the story and music.  We talked about how the different instruments portrayed the different characters in the story and a little about how the music helps to tell the story and how it affects how you feel. The children also noticed how some of the instruments played higher notes while others played deep low notes. 

Wednesday a new letter sound was introduced.  This week we looked at objects that start with the sound “b”.  The children enjoyed going through the bag and finding a bat, bag, bananas, and a butterfly.  Some new, very popular, practical life was introduced this week.  We are using salt and vinegar to polish pennies.  The children are carefully mixing a spoonful or two of salt with a squirt of vinegar and then using a cotton swab to dip in the mixture.  They are then carefully rubbing this mixture all over a penny and watching it become shiny again.  This happens due to a chemical reaction but the children are way more excited just to see them shine again.  To clean up the activity the children have to bring some of their materials to the garbage, wash out their cup, dry off their penny and then deposit it into our classroom tzedakah (charity) box. 

The children were quite excited on Thursday when Morah Wendy brought in a couple of real instruments for the children to look at and try out.  The children all enjoyed a chance to try out the violin feeling the strings and sliding the bow across.  Next up we looked at the saxophone.  We saw the reed and enjoyed trying out the different buttons and valves and getting an up close look inside the bell.  The children were all excited about seeing the real instruments up close and told anyone they saw during the day about them and how they had a chance to play. 

Friday we once again enjoyed going to the chapel with the other classes.  Our class  sadly didn’t have any guests for Shabbat but still enjoyed celebrating together.  We learned about how the mishkan was built; that the spirit of HaShem was surrounding all the people that did not build the golden calf.  These people followed the very specific instructions and brought the materials that were asked and built a beautiful ark made of wood, gold, silver, crimson, blue, purple, linen, wool and more.  The children were quite excited to all have a piece to add to our very own replica of the mishkan. 

Next week we will start talking about Pesach (Passover).  Have a lovely weekend.

 

Keshet

We started learning about the Passover story; the story of baby Moses, Moses growing up in Egypt, his fleeing to Midian, the burning bush, and getting Pharoah to let the Hebrew slaves go free. Getting into the Pesach spirit, we started practicing MaNishtanah and Echad Mi Yodeah? 

Nineteen days to go … but who’s counting?! 

A number of students have been very busy with the Montessori Stamp Game this week, adding units, tens, hundreds and thousands in a very concrete system.  Initially this activity involves adding numbers in each column, but not exceeding 9 of each category:  ones, tens, hundreds, thousands. Once they understand and practice at this level (static addition) they are introduced to the concept of exchanging ten ‘1’s’  for a ‘10’ stamp/tile, ten ‘10’s’ for a 100 tile… This activity is similar to the work they completed with the Golden Bead material. 

We introduced ‘ar’ as the phonogram of the week, and they are practicing writing, and then reading the words containing this sound. Reading a book (at their level) to a teacher or a friend is encouraged daily, or at least a few times a week. 

We celebrated Yasmin’s 6th birthday on Wednesday and everyone wrote a ‘Dear Yasmin’ letter which we collated into a birthday book. As one student wrote… ‘Happy cake day Yasmin!’

In Science we started our unit of Physical Science, starting with Light. We explored how light travels through air (in a straight line) and then experimented with light passing through water (light bends). We set up three experiments and the students worked in groups, following instructions and then shared their findings with the group. These science experiments will be out on the shelf so the students can continue to explore on their own. 

Music from Morah Dawn:

We have been learning about Japanese music the past few weeks and playing the gong. This week we started learning about volumes, like forte and piano, and we used egg shakers to try out different musical volumes. 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/t9Ps2BN69HhryzRZ7