Garinim 

Wow, another week has ended.  We have once again been busy.  We had a new practical life activity out this week, where rice was inside a small spice container.  The children used their fine motor skills to open up the top of the container to reveal the shaker holes and they skillfully shook all the rice out into the bowl.  Once complete they then untwisted the lid and scooped the rice back into the container (from the bowl) using a small spoon. 

 

This week we introduced the Montessori material Sound Cylinders.  There are two sets of cylinders, a red and blue, that are filled with a variety of sand and beans.  Each set has one cylinder that is filled with only sand and one that is filled with only beans and then 4 others that have both to varying degrees.  You gently shake the cylinders to see if you can find the ones that match from each set.  Once we get good at matching then we will work with one set of the cylinders and see if we can grade them from loudest to softest.  Oh it was fun to shake them, but a little tricky to see if we could match the sounds. 

 

We started to talk about the holiday of Shavuot this week.  We discussed how Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai and G-d gave him the 10 commandments.  We will spend lots more time next week talking about the holiday so we are prepared for when it arrives. 

 

Shabbat arrived before we knew it and we enjoyed singing songs together and of course eating challah and drinking grape juice.  The children have it down pat the order of the blessings and what to do for each one.  We tried to do the hand motions we learned from the older kids last week for David Melech as we sang it in our classroom, along with Oseh Shalom, Bim Bam, and Zum Gali.  Have a wonderful long weekend and see you all on Tuesday.

 

Alim

We wrapped up our Butterfly and Bird units this week.   The Sound of the Week was “Cc”.  

We read the Alphatale book Copycats.  It was a silly book reinforcing the sound of the week.  

There were sheets available for them to practice their letter formation and sounds.  We read some fun new books during story time.  The kids will be surprised next week when the classroom transforms into a Sea Life extravaganza.  There will be all new activities in Practical Life area, the Art area and the Science shelves.  

 

Alim Judaics  -    We learned a new Hebrew letter this week - gimmel.  We learned a few new Hebrew words that begin with this letter - gav/ back, giveena/ cheese, gadol/ big and gamal for camel.  We traced the ‘gimmel’ sand letter block with our fingers to learn how to write this letter, and watched a fun ‘Shalom Sesame’ Youtube video.  The children are coloring a gimmel coloring page in our arts area. 

•  We are excited to learn about and celebrate our upcoming Jewish holiday, Shavuot (June 4-6). We are reading and learning that G-d gave the 10 Commandments to the Jewish people, after Moses spent 40 days and nights on top of Mt. Sinai. 

• We learned a couple new Shavuot songs.

 

Alim Shabbat -  we celebrated together singing Shabbat is Here, Shabbat is Here, I’m so glad that Shabbat is here….. With Movement/ Stretching.   We played ‘Put a Chicken in the Pot’ with our imaginations, Stirred the soup and Read The Friday nights of Nana by Amy Hest.

The Shabbat helpers to say our prayers were Yael and Zeva. 

 

Alim Yoga Yeladim -  ‘Shavuot’ themed class - stretching to Shavuot and 10 Commandment songs, acting out a short story about the Jewish people receiving the Torah from G-d,  while practicing our Mountain, Torah, flower and cow poses to represent the Land of Milk and Honey. 

Keshet

Every day we work in all the Montessori areas, selecting work of choice, and work suggested by teachers. I reminded the students of the work we were doing at the start of the school year and how far they’ve come (with reference to their reading and writing) and was met with some big smiles. They know! We are now one journal away from the end of the school year!!!

We learned about plants, parts of the flower, pollination, and transferred the herbs that we started from seed into barrels in our garden.  We also planted cucumber seeds and snapdragons. We have been watering every day and look forward to seeing some growth in the following weeks.  The tomato plants already have a few yellow flowers, and the sugar snap peas have sprouted. 

 

The ‘take a book home in a bag’ seems to be doing well - please remember to return these each Friday. 

 

In Hebrew we continue to practice vowels and sounding out words.  We have been reciting our morning brachot daily, and now have the printed words to read along. Adon Olam is the most recent addition, alternating between three tunes. 

 

In Math we are practicing all that we have learned so far - students concentrating this week on tallying, division, and addition in the thousands. 

 

Keshet Yoga - ‘Shavuot’  theme -  stretching to Shavuot and 10 Commandment songs, Saluting the Sun, Breathing in patience for ourselves and others. Acting out a short story about Shavuot  through Yoga- practicing our Mountain pose, Torah pose, Flower pose, Cow pose  and Tree pose to represent harvesting Fruit Trees, decorating w/flowers and practicing Bumble bee breath for the Land of Milk and Honey.  We  balanced books on our head while in standing poses to represent staying up all night to study Torah. We practiced  ‘ 7 ‘ rolly pollies to count the 7 weeks of the Omer from Passover to Shavuot. 

See this week’s photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/jRyenBWrS38kNBgG8