Garinim

This week was all about pets and farm animals.

We talked a little bit about the difference between the two: a pet can live inside your house, but a farm animal lives outside or in a barn. But of course, people do love their animals even if they can’t live inside their house with them!

We played a game together sorting pictures of animals into groups of pets and farm animals. We also learned the names of some new animals while playing this game- like guinea pigs, goats, and hamsters. 

We also learned during our discussions at morning group this week that some of our friends have pets at home, or have grandparents with pets that they can visit. We talked a little bit about how we care for our pets as well. 

On our language shelf children worked on a simple spelling puzzle using letter pieces to spell out ‘cat’ and ‘dog,’ and matched photos to figurines of different pets. In practical life they used tongs to sort small animals, and strung farm animal beads onto a pipe cleaner. On our math shelf was a pet and farm animal matching game, and a collection of farm animals they used to make sets of one, two, and three. 

A very popular addition to the classroom this week was the large farm animals in the block area. Many children simply enjoyed putting them into and taking them out of the barn container, while others got to work building a farm with the blocks so that the animals had a place to live. 

On Thursday, Aurelia’s parents and Savta came to celebrate her upcoming third birthday with us! Aurelia brought some very yummy and colorful cupcakes to share, and also some very fun party hats! Later we had music with Morah Dawn, and we all used the claves to tap out rhythms while we sang her “Happy Birthday” again!

Judaics:

The children had so much fun on Monday celebrating Purim! It was fun for some of the children to get dressed up. The 7th and 8th grade students/teachers read sections from the Meggilat Esther and acted out scenes from the story. There were several wicked Hamans, Queen Esther’s, Mordechai’s and King Achashverosh’s! 

We have been learning about animals and where they live so we decided to make a cat/chatool out of a paper plate. Our chatoolim had aynamin, oznayim, peh, aff, v’shafam/eyes, ears, mouth, nose and whiskers! 

On Thursday we practiced our yoga moves and did lots of downward kelev/dogs, chatool, parah/cow, and gamal/camel poses.

On Friday we celebrated Shabbat with Razi’s Mom,  Erez, his baby brother and his Aunt Shoshana. We sang our way to the chapel and Morah Lana read us a story. It was all about Shabbat candlesticks and how the girl in the story made her very own candlesticks for Shabbat!

Alim

Monday-

Happy Purim!!!!! Yay!  The children dressed up and we went down to the synagogue to listen to the Purim performance by the older children in Ezra.  The kids were dressed up and we brought down the groggers that we made in the classroom.  We enjoyed Hamentashen cookies that we had made. 

Tuesday -

We had a new sound of the week "Oo".  We read the AlphaTale book Olive the Octopus’s Day of Juggling. There were worksheets available for the children to practice the letter " Oo" formation and sound association for that letter. We talked about our household pets.  All the children talked about their household animals that they care for at home. There was a lot of new work that was shown in the classroom. There was paper tissue flower making in art,  new painting work and new cutting work.  

Wednesday- 

We flew to the Continent of Asia.  The passports were stamped for the continent of Asia.  Some children push pinned the continent piece.  The Animals of Asia was discussed as well.

Thursday-

We had a nice work day.  Morah Dawn came to our classroom for a music lesson.  She passed out rhythm sticks for the children to practice beats.  They had so much fun.

Friday-

We went down to the chapel for Shabbat with the other Montessori classes.  We came back into our classroom to celebrate Ashley's birthday.  It was a very sweet birthday celebration and the children wished her many wonderful wishes.  We had a special cupcake and challah with grape juice.  The Shabbat box went home with Henry and his family.  Yay!!!!!!

Alim Judaics Our school started the week with a bang! We all got dressed up for the shpiel. It was so much fun!

This week we talked about pet animals and brushed up on our animal names in Hebrew. We shared about our home pets. Alim loves when it’s our turn to make challah and as usual we enjoyed making the dough and braiding it. 

We read the book “Max makes a cake” by Michelle Edwards. 

On Friday we celebrated Shabbat with our Montessori friends at the chapel and came back to the classroom to celebrate Ashley’s birthday and kiddush. 

Have a peaceful and restful Shabat.

 

Anafim

What an incredible week we had.  We started the week off super busy on Monday, celebrating Purim.  We quickly entered the classroom, donned our costumes, grabbed our groggers and lined up to join the whole rest of the school (and even some parents) in the main sanctuary to hear the megillah reading.  We were so excited to hear the 7th and 8th graders read and to watch all the skits that the 1st- 6th graders put on.  We all loved shaking our groggers when we heard Haman’s name!  Once back in the classroom we pushed all of our tables together and had a lovely Purim snack together.  We enjoyed some fruit and of course, hamantaschen.  Once our bellies were a little more full and began our Montessori carnival.  We enjoyed 2 activities in our room (bowling down Haman, and bingo) before moving on to the Garinim classroom where we tossed a hamantaschen bean bag into a hamantaschen cutout and strung beads to make a necklace or bracelet.  From here we went to the Alim classroom to decorate a mask and have a dance party!  It was all so much fun.  We went back to our classroom and got ready to go outside and joined together with Alim and Garinim for some fresh air.

Tuesday was definitely a calmer day!  We started talking about spring and some signs of spring that we might see; flowers blooming, birds making nests, animals more active and more.  We had a nice period of time to do some work in the classroom as well.  The golden beads and sound pouches were quite popular as well as the puzzle of the United States. 

Wednesday we started working on a big project for Passover!  We are embellishing some hand towels to be used at your seder to go along with all of the hand washing!  Many of the children started to choose colors and sew around the edges.  This will be an ongoing project so stay tuned for more updates.  We also were on challah baking this week so we whipped up our dough and set it aside to rise.

Thursday we rolled and braided the challah as well as had music class with Morah Dawn.  We were excited to be able to choose our own claves this week.  We also reviewed our different notes and how many beats they are before practicing several rhythms, trying to keep up with the leader.  This was quite tricky!  We then got to keep our own rhythms to go along with the song “Under the Sea” from the Little Mermaid. 

Friday we were joined for Shabbat by Benji’s dad.  We went down to the chapel with the other Montessori rooms and sang lots of songs.  This week Morah Lana read a story about a little girl and her Shabbat candlesticks and even brought several different examples.  Once back in the classroom we enjoyed our challah and fruit together.  Next week we will be talking a lot more about our next holiday, Pesach (Passover).  

Keshet

Monday was Shushan Purim and we joined the rest of Ezra for the Megillah reading and grade 1-8 skits.  It was very entertaining and the Keshet kids joined in shaking their groggers on cue! Keshet completed the celebration singing ‘Chag Purim, chag Purim, chag gadol l’yeladim…’ in front of all the students and parent visitors. The day continued with a carnival in multi age groups and our kids joined the older grades, in six teams, as they went from activity to activity; including rock wall climbing in the gym, nail painting, making masks, making Purim character puppets, musical chairs.  

Tuesday we moved right toward the next holiday - Passover.  We started weaving Moses baskets, and were all pretty good weavers! The project continues… 

We’re starting to practice some Hebrew Passover songs, getting ready for the seder. 

In Science we have worked our way to the Urinary System and learned about the kidneys and how they filter out the blood and remove the extra waste and water to make urine.  The urine travels through two thin tubes called the ureters, from the kidneys to the bladder.  They were quite interested and liked hearing how the bladder fills up and then sends a message to the brain, which sends a return message to ‘go to the bathroom now!’ They colored and cut out the parts that make up the urinary system and added them to their cut out body.  Almost complete!

Our newest popular game is ‘LADYBUG’ (aka. ‘hangman’) and they are really getting the idea and some have started to play in teams. We also introduced adjectives, playing a game of ‘Go get me’ as in ‘go get me a colored pencil’...’That is a pencil but I was thinking of a GREEN pencil’...

Friday concluded with a yoga class where everyone helped with the story as Morah Lana demonstrated the poses as the story moved along.  You may be interested in asking your child to show you some yoga poses, or tell you a yoga story. 

See this week’s pictures here https://photos.app.goo.gl/4uLYgWrkggLfgwMX8