Garinim:

We are off to an amazing week! In our language area of our classroom we set up a nature center. The children are able to assemble their own autumn decorations in a large planter box. They are being very creative using different items we found outside, and items we have in the classroom. At their disposal are leaves, tall grass, pine cones, mini pumpkins, chestnuts and acorns.

This week we are focusing on brown and orange. There are strips of orange paper that they are able to cut or rip. At the art easel we have added katom/orange paint. Some of the children were dotting the orange all over the paper or for some just a few dabs would suffice.

In the art center some of the children are rolling a pine cone in brown/chom paint and making pine cone prints. The children got creative glueing different types of paper and fabric to a squiggly squirrel! We are working on a long term project that you will receive soon! Keep your eyes out for some silly turkey crafts coming up next week.

On Thursday it just so happened we had lots of “p” snacks . We had a variety of peppers, plums and pears. Thank you for making our community snack so interesting and delicious.

Morah Dawn taught us a song about being thankful. She also brought in her large drum where the children had to guess if she was playing piano/softly or forte/loud. They did a terrific job identifying the type of sounds played.

We took a poll Thursday at lunch on who had a favorite color. 

Eliot’s favorite is green.

Ella likes yellow.

Razi likes purple and orange.

Ira just blue.

Daniel chose yellow.

Aurelia, pink and purple.

Wow what a busy week we had! Friday it’s off to the chapel for some singing and fun! The Parsha this week, Toldot tells us the story of the birth of Jacob and Esau and their struggle for the birthright and blessing from their father, Isaac.

Alim:

This week we talked about Gratitude and what that means to us. When this question was asked to the group....some children said it means love and kindness.  Some kids said it meant thank you. Then we discussed what Gratitude really means.  It is when you feel thankful for the good things in your life.  For example a place to live, food, clean water, friends and family.  Gratitude is taking a moment to reflect how lucky you are when something good happens whether it's small or big.  

Monday-  We reviewed the Sound of the week "Ll".  We read the Alphatale story called The Llama who Loved to Laugh. Lily and Levi were part of the sound of the week.  There were letter formation sheets available and sound association worksheets for the children to practice.

Tuesday- We started a Gratitude project in the classroom.

Wednesday -  We discussed the SEASONS.  There was a new sorting activity presented to the children during our morning circle.  

Thursday-  Morah Dawn came into our classroom and reviewed the Sound levels and the Thankful Song.

Friday-  We went down to the Sanctuary with all the Montessori students. We listened to the Parsha with Morah Lana.  Ashley's family joined us for Shabbat.  Then we blessed our Challah and had some delicious grape juice in the classroom.  Ashley took the Shabbat box home and we can't wait to hear about her adventures with Shaul (our fox friend) over the weekend.

Alim Judaics:  We had such a busy and fun week. 

On Monday we reconnected by singing our Hebrew days of the week song. We all felt like we needed to move around a bit so we did some Arkada - Israeli folk dance.

On Tuesday we talked about apples ( also our morning snack) and the color red - adom. We read the book titled: The Apple Tree Discovery. 

On Wednesday we discussed beginnings in life and how we say the Shegechiyanu blessing for beginnings. We had our friend Henry beginning a new age, and we have the beginning of cold mornings, …

We read the book titled: Let’s Say Shehechiyanu.

We also prepped our challah for Shabbat.

Friday could not have come any sooner because we love celebrating Shabbat! The Korwin family came to celebrate and enjoyed Kiddush with us. We love when families come visit and celebrate with our classroom family.

 

Anafim:

This week we started learning about the next holiday in our year.  This time however, it is not a Jewish holiday, but rather an American one.  Hopefully you all guessed that we are talking about Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed listening to a retelling of the story of how the Pilgrims were unhappy in England so boarded a large boat or ship called the Mayflower.  They sailed for a very long time looking for a better place to live.  Once they arrived in this new land it was very hard.  They did not know how to survive.  Thankfully they met the Wampanoag who helped them learn important skills like hunting and planting.  Once the Pilgrims were more self-sufficient they had a big meal together, just like how we have a big meal with our families.  We also enjoyed some books on the topic as well.  Another exciting point of our week was geography lessons with the land and water forms.  These give the children an opportunity to learn and feel the differences between land and water and to start learning terms that are associated with them.  The first set of forms we brought out were a series of islands and a series of lakes.  The children learned that an island is land completely surrounded by water and the opposite of that is a lake (which is water completely surrounded by land).  The children delighted in pouring water from a pitcher into the forms and adding some props; a small boat into the water, and a little cow onto the dry land. 

On Monday we were incredibly busy.  We enjoyed gym class with Coach Oren.  This week he set up an obstacle course for us and we enjoyed jumping into hula hoops, running across mat bridges, jumping on a trampoline and crawling through some tunnels.  Whew it was quite a work out.  After outside time we celebrated Liora’s 3rd birthday!  We were joined in the classroom by her parents as we told the story of Liora with the help of some pictures.  The children loved following along as Liora grew in the pictures.  The children were excited to notice similarities in little Liora and now that she has grown up a bit more.  After singing happy birthday to Liora we enjoyed a cookie and some fruit salad along with our lunches from home.   

Tuesday we had a review of some of our letter sounds.   Morah Wendy listed some words and then the children had to choose which sound they started with.  This proved to be a little tricky for some of the children, but they were helped out by others in the class.  It was so wonderful to see the children working cooperatively together.

This Wednesday we once again made challah.  Measuring, counting, mixing, singing and of course kneading kept us busy.  We also enjoyed a little math game with some dice, feathers and a turkey cutout.  Poor Tom Turkey had no feathers!  The children were able to roll a dice and count the dots to see how many feathers to add to Mr. Turkey.  For those that found 1 die easy we quickly added a second and then the child had to add up the two dice to see how many feathers to add to Tom.  This simple game was quite popular!

Thursday we braided our challah, looked at the Hebrew letter ג (gimmel), and enjoyed music with Morah Dawn.  Morah Dawn again brought the single drum and those children that did not have a turn last week to play a volume were able to do so before we moved on to singing a thankful song.  It was really nice to think about what we are thankful for and sing about it.  This week we sang about having a house, our family and for food. 

Friday we were joined by Alon Geva’s parents.  It was so exciting because this week we didn’t go into the chapel, we went into the big sanctuary.  It was so exciting to see the big bima (stage area) and the big aron hakodesh (ark where the Torah scrolls are kept).  We also really liked opening and closing the chairs.  We enjoyed Morah Lana’s retelling of this week's bible story about Jacob and Esau.  The children learned about how Jacob held onto Esau’s heel at birth and how Jacob later tricked Esau into giving him his birthright.  Back in the classroom we enjoyed challah and grape juice together.  Have a wonderful weekend and we will continue talking about Thanksgiving next week.

 

Keshet:

Happy 5th Birthday to Eliana - we celebrated with Eliana and her parents on Wednesday morning!  We learned about Eliana’s journey from her mom’s pregnancy, Eliana’s growth and development through the years (we loved the photos), and her journey from Israel to her new home in Connecticut! 

We’re getting ready for Thanksgiving, in all areas of our Keshet day.  At group we have been discussing the traditional Thanksgiving story with the disgruntled Pilgrims leaving England in 1620 and traveling on the Mayflower all the way across the ocean to America.  Ask your child why the Pilgrims decided to leave England, what they took with them on the Mayflower, what food they ate on the long journey (and why). Our focus was on the Pilgrims and their journey and what it was like arriving on land that was unfamiliar to them in so many ways.  We learned about the Wampanoag people who lived here for thousands of years, a spirited group who pray to and give thanks to Mother Earth. There are currently 4000-5000 Wampanoag people living in this area of New England today.  The Wampanoag hunted for their food, planted and gathered corn, pumpkins, and beans. We learned some hunting techniques, and the consumption of all parts of the hunted animal for food and clothing, and turkey feathers for creating mattresses. The Wampanoag people taught the Pilgrims to spear fish, and we re-enacted the story with zest! We spoke more about ‘Mother Earth’ and thought about all we are thankful for, and how we celebrate today, sharing a meal with family and / or friends and eating the foods that the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims became accustomed to eating all those years ago.  

We made woven placemats that your child may enjoy using at their Thanksgiving table.  We are sewing ‘turkey feathers’ and creating creative turkey collages.  

In Math we enjoyed Thanksgiving Pilgrim stories with an introduction to Subtraction., using number bonds by way of representation. We also explored symmetry, designing turkeys with matching feathers on either side. 

In Geography we are exploring Land and Water forms and this week learning about Peninsula and Gulf, and recognising these on our Montessori puzzle maps. We have moved on from the continent of Africa to Asia…

 Shabbat Shalom and enjoy this week’s pictures https://photos.app.goo.gl/cEKYWVTo8SPg7NZu5