Garinim

Garinim has been busy getting ready for Mother's Day! We started this week talking about what Mother's Day is and we went around the circle and discovered that we all have a mother! Some of us call our mothers different names like Mommy, Ima, and Mama. We also talked a lot this week about what special things our mothers do for us and how Mother's Day is a special day to say thank you for all they do. The children were asked to reflect on this throughout the week and came up with some good answers:

Maya: "She watches Gabby Dollhouse with me when I'm sick."

Liora: “She plays with me at home.”

Drew: “She pushes me on the swing.”

Alon: “She plays with me.”

Silas: “She plays water.”

David: “She plays monster trucks at home.”

Ethan: “She plays toys.”

Ashley: “She got me Dandelion.”

Sofía: “She plays babies.”

We also read some books about human and animal mothers like Mommies Are for Counting Stars and Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too?

The children worked hard all week on their Mother's Day gifts- we hope you love them!

In addition to preparing for Mother's Day, some new practical life work made its debut on our shelves this week. One activity is a dropper transfer activity. Last week the children got accustomed to using a much smaller dropper in a bottle to make coffee filter butterflies for an art project, and loved it so much that we incorporated it into practical life, simply transferring colored water between two bottles using a small dropper. They have also enjoyed a dry transfer activity using blue colored salt and a funnel and spoon, scooping and transferring from jar to jar. Watching the concentration on their faces as the children watch the salt empty from the funnel into the jar before putting in another scoop has been wonderful!

And of course, we've spent plenty of time outside (with plenty of sunscreen too of course!) enjoying this beautiful warm and DRY weather!

Happy Mother's Day to all of our incredible moms! Thank you for all you do!!

Judaica:

Monday the children were busy preparing snacks for the day. They helped wash the cutting board and cleaned the table/shulchan. We also had a craft set up for Lag Ba Omer. The children took pre cut paper for logs and shaped red/adom, yellow/tsahov and orange/katom tissue into little balls for the fire/aish.

Tuesday we had a terrific time outside celebrating Lag Ba Omer with the Anafim, Alim and Keshet classes. The children from the Keshet class collected branches and shaped them to make a bonfire. The children pretended to roast marshmallows on the fire. In addition, we had yummy fruit skewers, sang songs and the Keshet class danced to Tzadik Katamar! They were fantastic! Morah Wendy read the children a Lag Ba Omer story, “A Holiday for Ari Ant”, by Sylvia Rousse. We all had a great time celebrating the festival together.

Wednesday the children were busy with making challah dough. We practiced singing Challah in the Oven. They love shouting “Rise!” so ask them to sing it for you.

Thursday we braided and baked our yummy challah for our Friday/Yom Shishi Shabbat celebration.

Friday we finished off our week in the Chapel with lots of singing and marching around with our stuffed Torahs. We discussed how many ways we can give and do mitzvot /good deeds. Each child was given a coin/kesef to put in a tzadakah box/charity box.

Alim

This week we had wonderful spring weather.  The caterpillars have finally turned into chrysalises.  The kids are fascinated by this big change with our classroom guests. :) 

 

On Monday we started our Mothers Day "Surprise" gifts.  All the kiddos worked hard on the project.

 

On Tuesday,  it was a special day where the classroom went to celebrate for LAG BA’ OMER outside with the rest of the Montessori classes.  The children enjoyed a virtual fire while singing Hebrew songs.  The kids ate marshmallows and pretended to roast them.

 

On Wednesday the children had a normal work day in the classroom.  They read some fun books during circle time.

 

On Thursday,  we celebrated Zevi's special 5th birthday!!!!  YAY!!!!! It was a nice celebration with his parents and we all enjoyed a yummy cupcake cake which was such a special treat.  Zevi had a great day being the Birthday Boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

On Friday,  we did our usual routine and went down to the chapel.  We sang Shabbat songs and listened to a new Parsha from Morah Lana.  The Shabbat box and Shual went home with Levi.   Have a very nice Mother's Day this weekend.  Enjoy the gifts the children made for their mothers.

 

Anafim

The weather towards the end of this week was gorgeous!  We finally got some much needed sunshine.  This week we dove into the lifecycle of butterflies.  The children were a step ahead when we started our discussions as we had received real caterpillars a couple of weeks ago and the children had been watching them eat and grow.  We spent this week discussing how butterflies lay eggs on leaves (different kinds depending on the type of butterfly), then caterpillars hatch out and start eating.  The caterpillars grow much bigger (by eating and eating) and shed their skin multiple times.  They then shed their final layer and get encompassed by their chrysalis.  This stage is also called the pupa.  The caterpillars stay inside their chrysalis for 1-2 weeks before using their legs to push open the chrysalis and pull themselves out and emerge as a butterfly.  This week our children have joyously been watching the caterpillars crawl to the top of their container and shed their outer layer as they envelope themselves in their chrysalis.  This has been such an exciting event in our class.  Once the last of our 7 caterpillars formed its chrysalis we carefully opened the container and moved them into their butterfly garden.  We carefully hung this in our classroom so we can observe the next stages.  We are hoping to see some butterflies emerge next week.

We spent a lot of time working on our special Mother’s Day presents and cards.  We hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day together.  The children were so excited to make these special things for such special people in their lives. 

Coloring mystery pictures was still a very popular activity this week- where the children are given a list of numbered squares to color in a certain color on a 100’s chart.  Also popular was using squeeze bottles and paint to make a design on one side of a paper and then folding it up to transfer the paint to both sides to make a butterfly.  The children have also been enjoying matching manipulatives of the butterfly lifecycle to picture cards of the stages. 

Tuesday we enjoyed a Lag B’Omer picnic together with all of the Montessori.  It was so exciting to join our friends around the campfire (pretend) that the Keshet class made.  We sang lots of songs, ate fruit kabobs and even had a marshmallow treat (that we pretended to roast on the fire).  We then enjoyed listening to a story about Lag B’Omer before heading back to our classrooms. 

Thursday Morah Dawn again brought her ukulele and we all had a chance to strum on it.  We sang the thankful song and old Mcdonald had a farm with the ukulele.  The children are really coming up with some great things they are thankful for.

On Friday we were joined by Mika’s parents in the chapel and classroom.  Morah Lana used the parsha to tell us about being kind to others and one of those ways is by giving tzedakah (charity).  She discussed that some ways of doing this are by giving coins or money (and we each got to put a coin in the box before leaving the chapel today!) and by donating food to people that are in need.  We will be collecting boxes of cereal next week to go along with this.  Back in the classroom we were so excited to taste Garinim’s challah this week. 

Next week we are hoping the weather stays nice as we continue to watch our butterflies and talk more about planting!  Shabbat Shalom

Keshet

Our week began with the excitement of noticing how big the caterpillars grew over the weekend! And two days later they were chrysalises, hanging from the top of the container (well, two of them).  We waited a few days and then transferred them to the larger butterfly habitat and will watch and wait… Butterfly painting prints were quite popular with some of our students this week too. 

Tuesday was Lag B’Omer, the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer (counting up from Passover to Shavuot). An omer, in days gone by,  was a measurement of barley, actually 5lbs of barley and though we didn’t have barley, we’ve been measuring items in pounds and ounces this week, on a well used (vintage) scale. 

We spoke about Rabbi Akiva who went into a cave to study and pray for many years. He had a lot of students who studied with him- about 24 000! He told the students that they should love each other like they love themself.  However, his students did not treat each other with respect - they were all trying to be the best - better than everyone else, always fighting and arguing.  It is said that between Passover and Shavuot, so many of these students got hurt , but, on the 33rd day (Lag B’Omer) no one was hurt. Traditionally nowadays, people celebrate with bonfires and singing and dancing, and we did this too - we collected sticks and built a pretend fire, sat with all the Montessori kids and pretended to roast real marshmallows and then really ate them!  We enjoyed fruit kebabs too, and sang and danced around the campfire. The teachers sang Israeli songs and danced around the fire too.  Then later in the day the Keshet students joined the upper school in more dancing and singing!  

We introduced and played the Montessori Farm Game with a barn, tree (indoor plant) and pond (paper pond) and an assortment of various color and sized farm animals.  As we set up the activity we identified each group of animals and then played one at a time, reading a clue, ex.  ‘I’m thinking of a duck’ as I write ‘a duck’ and the student reads the word and retrieves the animal.  We continued for a number of children and then it became more complex.  ‘I was thinking of the goat, but I was thinking of the, as I cut the slip of paper between the words ‘a and goat’ and write ‘black’ on another slip of paper and insert it so it reads ‘a black goat’ and the child locates the more specific animal. Hence, introducing the concept of describing words and calling them adjectives.  We will continue playing and practicing as we begin to understand parts of speech.  

And we did not forget our mom’s, shhhh, big surprise on Sunday - the Keshet kids worked hard and super enthusiastically created something we think you’re going to love! Enjoy this week’s photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/1N1v9M5ZjwLCJ1Qv8