Garinim 

We had another busy week in our room!  We are happily preparing for Purim and can’t wait to celebrate with our school community.   We have been using playdough (as our dough) and plastic jewels (as our filling) to practice making hamantaschen.  We smooshed out our dough and then used a circle cutter to make a circle.  We added the jewels in the middle and then practiced folding up the circle into a triangle pinching the sides as we went.  The children were so excited to share what kind of filling they were adding into the middle of their hamantaschen.  The mask making was again quite popular this week as the children created many different masks, while discussing if they were pretending to be Queen Esther, King Ahashveros, Haman or Mordechai.  New, bright, vibrant colors were added to the easel this week and many of the children took a turn stroking the paint across paper.  We also worked on a project that will be coming home next week, where we had our feet and hands painted.  There were so many belly laughs from the children as their feet got painted!

 

During music on Thursday, Morah Dawn introduced the idea of loud and quiet music, forte and piano.  We kept this idea going as we learned about drowning out Haman’s name.  We want to be loud (or forte) when we hear his name and boo, stomp, shake our groggers and just make a whole lot of noise.  We then want to be quiet (piano) when more of the story is being read/told.  

 

For Shabbat this week, we focused on the idea of mitzvot (good deeds) and read the story 26 Big Things Small Hands Do.  We all got so excited to think of ways we can help others and what we already do to be kind friends.  We also enjoyed singing together and saying all of our Shabbat Brachot (blessings) together before enjoying our yummy challah and grape juice together.  

 

Alim

We continued our Space unit this week. We read more books on the Planets in our Solar System. We made some fun Rocket ships and the kids have their faces on them.  We continued practicing our Planet song. Ask your children to sing the song for you.  :)   Many of the kids have memorized the Planet song and have done solos in front of their peers in the classroom.  This week our kIndness Jar was filled.  The kids were so happy to bring in a special “Show and Tell” item into school to share with their classmates.   We reviewed all the Sound of the Week sounds we have done so far and we practiced them together as a group.  Also, we have worked on many Purim projects in the classroom.   

Alim Judaics  -

This week we have been celebrating our upcoming Purim holiday.  We continue to sing ‘Chag Purim’ in Hebrew and English and ‘Pretty little Esther went to Town’ which we act out.  We enjoyed reading the book, ‘It’s Purim Time’ which explains all the festivities that come with this holiday.  We are creating our Purim ‘character’ graggers and can’t wait to use them.

 

Alim - Yoga Yeladim -  We stretched to our favorite  Purim songs - ‘Hey- man!’ and ‘Chag Purim’, acted out the Megillah story of Esther  through Yoga and played Freeze Dance Yoga to Pharrell Williams’ HAPPY song - after all, It’s ADAR - Be HAPPY!! - of course while using our ‘egg shakers’ to drown out Haman’s name.

Shabbat was celebrated with singing & dancing to Shabbat songs, our Tzedakah song & some Purim songs.  We read “The Purim SuperHero” which was a BIG Hit! and Grace & Ares led us in singing our Shabbat prayers before snacktime.  

 

Keshet

Keshet kids have been practicing and preparing for the Purim schpiel which they will perform impromptu (somewhat) for their families via Zoom. We’re singing all those happy Purim songs, in English and Hebrew and busy designing, painting, sewing and being most creative! They decided to make their own combined Purim Story book, written and illustrated as a group!

This week we chanted, jumped and counted in two’s, and filled each grogger with beans,  counting the beans two - by- two to 22, 32 or 42. 

Number games on Thursday reinforced the concept of ‘more’ and ‘less’ - the children threw a dice and then added, ex. ‘2 more’ and took the corresponding number of Lego pieces. 

We started a Science unit on planets, beginning this week with Earth, recapping all that we already know about Earth, continents and oceans, the layers of the earth - inner core, outer core, mantle and crust.  The students were amazed at the concept of all the continents originally fitting together as one giant continent called Pangaea, and over time becoming further separated by the oceans. Science continued with tectonic plates, earthquakes and volcanoes, and of course we built our own salt dough volcano and created a volcanic eruption! 

 

Keshet Yoga Yeladim - 

Yoga Yeladim -  We stretched to our favorite  Purim songs - ‘Hey- man!’ and ‘Chag Purim’, danced for the SUN, acted out the Megillah story of Esther through Yoga and played Freeze Dance Yoga to Pharrell Williams’ HAPPY song - after all, It’s ADAR - Be HAPPY!! - of course while using our ‘egg shakers’ to drown out Haman’s name. We rested to Shalom Alechem Dreams while considering how we can be a Hero like Queen Esther and stand up for what we believe in.  ‘What makes YOU a Hero and how can you help others?’

 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/6p9fh7LnrLr2EzB98