Garinim:

This week we have extended our study of autumn. We have new crafts on our Art shelves, corresponding with the autumn theme of what animals we have seen? The children observed squirrels in search of nuts, and hedgehogs looking for caterpillars and any other tasty bugs! The children have been dot painting squirrels with brown/chom and orange/katom, repeating the colors they are learning about. Our prickly hedgehog has lots of pointy leaf shapes that are glued onto their body reinforcing autumnal colors. 

Some, not all of the children, helped scoop the seeds out of a very large orange pumpkin! Some really enjoyed touching the slimy flesh and seeds, while others were content to observe. When the children arrived on Tuesday I told them that they should be detectives and look for any new and exciting works. We added the pumpkin seeds into a color sorting work that was both a manipulative and color separating activity. 

There are new works in the Practical Life area! The children can make bubbles with a wire whisk, spooning dried peas, and sorting six pumpkins into a container with six slots.

Our sensory table has been a great place for the children to interact. There are tongs, spoons, wooden bowls, acorns, chestnuts in and out of the shell, and funnels to create whatever they would like to invent! Some of the children are trying to connect with each other at the open sensory table.

Wednesday was challah dough making day! We discussed all the ingredients needed to make the challah dough both in Hebrew and English! We counted the cups of flour/chem' ah, water/mayim, number of eggs, oil/shemen, salt/mel' ach, sugar and yeast/shmarim.

Morah Marta made blue/kachol playdough with the children! They had fun adding all the ingredients to a large bowl and kneading the dough. We added a hidden surprise inside the playdough. Ask your child if they explored the playdough and what they discovered in it!

On Thursday we had music with Morah Dawn. She reviewed how we stand before singing, called singing position (standing up tall with our hands by our sides). She showed the children how to warm up their face, voice and body. We enjoyed learning about word forte meaning a loud sound and piano which means a soft sound. They tapped on a large drum being very loud and soft. We had a terrific time with Morah Dawn. Then it was onto rolling and braiding our challot. Again, some children had the option of exploring the classroom while other children helped roll out strips of dough to braid the challah.

We have been reading a series of stories by Karma Wilson about a friendly bear and all of his woodland friends and all of the fun adventures they have.

Friday we sang our way to the Chapel with the other Montessori classrooms. Morah Lana told the children about the Parshat Chayai Sarah. Rebekah retrieved water from the well to serve to Abraham's servant, Eliezer (who was in search of a suitable wife for Isaac). Morah Lana told the children how hard Rebekah worked fetching water from the well to serve to Eliezer and all of his camels. The children went back to the classroom to enjoy challah and grape juice. We sang the songs we sing in the Chapel and then we read a Shabbat story. We had a very busy week. Thank you to all of the parents for contributing either fruits or vegetables for our morning snack.

Alim:

On Monday, we had a group lesson with the Sound of the Week "Ww".   We read the Alphatale book called Worm's Wagon.  There were corresponding worksheets that practiced the letter formation and sound association with this letter.  Also, there was an I spy work in which the children had to find all the objects that begin with the sound "Ww".   This was a fun work activity for the kiddos.

 

On Tuesday and Wednesday,  we had a normal work day in the classroom.

 

On Thursday-  We had David's birthday celebration. We celebrated with his parents and his classmates. All the children were respectful and kind during the celebration.  All the children had the opportunity to wish David a special wish.  Some children said that they would bring him 100 balloons,  a million cupcakes,  100 cakes..... the list of good wishes goes on!!!!!!!   Then we had a nice piece of cake with the class. 

 

On Friday we went down to the chapel with the other Montessori classrooms.  We sang songs together and enjoyed the Parsha of the week.  We blessed our Challah and then we had our show and tell. This was super cute.  The kids said they love that they can do Show and Tell.  :)  The Shabbat box went home with Levi and his family. 

Alim Judaics:  WOW! We worked so much and so hard this week!

On Monday we started singing our Hebrew days of the week song, following with a great book called: Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.

Since the book mentioned some animals we also learned the Old Mcdonald song in Hebrew.

Tuesday we worked on our alef bet review and some of us finished our alef bet book. We started learning the Mode Ani prayer and talked about its meaning.

Wednesday could not have come any faster. We love preparing our challot. We all enjoy cracking eggs and adding flour. Some of us actually really enjoy cleaning up the flour on the table and the floor after we put our dough to proof. We read a book called The Schmutzy Family and we related making challah and cleaning up with the story in the book.

Thursday we braid and bake our challot. We watch each other’s braiding techniques. We are all getting pretty good at it. We had a birthday celebration in the classroom and sang Ha Yom Yom Uledet.

It’s Friday and our favorite day of the week. Not only we celebrated in the chapel, we also had a wonderful kiddush in the classroom.

Anafim:

Pumpkins pumpkins everywhere!  This week we continued to dive into pumpkins.  The seeds we dug out of our pumpkin last week became an addition to our collage material this week along with the coffee filters that we dyed orange.  We added some orange yarn to represent pulp and the children really enjoyed gluing all of these items together to represent the inside of a pumpkin. 

On Monday we celebrated Emma’s 4th birthday!  Her parents joined us for a wonderful Montessori birthday celebration and brought a special cookie treat to share with all of us.  Thank you so much for joining us!  We were very excited to make some new orange play dough as well on Monday.  The children spent the week excitedly making pumpkins out of this lovely shade.  Unfortunately Coach Oren was sick this week so we were not able to have gym class, but enjoyed having a little extra work time.

Tuesday Morah Linda joined us and we learned how to add stuffing to our pillows.  This inspired many of the children to work on sewing.  The children did a wonderful job waiting for a turn to sew and stuff and persevered through sewing around the whole pumpkin.  While this was happening many other children were getting creative with a pumpkin stencil.  Some traced the shape on paper, cut it out and drew on a face.  Others traced the shape on black paper and then used some orange and green cutting scraps and glued these on.  The easel was also quite popular as the children enjoyed painting with different fall colors.

Wednesday Morah Lana joined our class for a bit.  We enjoyed a very high energy circle time where we focused on a new letter sound “r”.  We enjoyed a nice long work period.  We took out a floor puzzle and many children enjoyed working on this.  Some of the children were introduced to making a sun with the color tiles, working on grading each color and lining them up to be a spoke of the sun.  The children really had to pay attention to each gradation of the color.

Thursday we welcomed Morah Ariel to our classroom.  The children were very welcoming and enjoyed showing her the routine of our day.  We reviewed the life cycle of a pumpkin and many children even completed a paper with the 6 stages on it.  Morah Dawn came for music class and brought with her a larger single drum.  The children were quite intrigued by this.  Many of the children had the opportunity to try it out.  They got to decide if they wanted to play forte, piano, fortissimo or pianissimo and then the rest of the class had to take a guess as to what volume they were playing.  This was a very fun game and we found out most of the children really enjoy playing fortissimo!  We were also introduced to two more volumes- mezzo forte and mezzo piano which Morah Dawn teaches us as medium loud and medium soft.  We then added these two volumes into our song and completed singing it.  The children especially love the ending when we sleep.  See if your child remembers the song and can sing it to you.

This Friday we were joined by Jasper’s mom and grandma.  It was so wonderful to have them join us to see how we celebrate Shabbat at school.  In the chapel Morah Lana enthralled us with this week’s torah portion.  We learned about Eliezer and how he journeyed to find Isaac’s new wife.  Upon arriving in Charan he was ignored by many but one young lady, Rebecca, offered Eliezer some water.  She went to the well and drew him some and gave it to him.  She was even kind enough to go back multiple times to the well to draw more water for the camels.  This kindness convinced Eliezer that she would be the perfect wife for Isaac.  The children really loved watching the bucket of the well go up and down each time Rebecca drew more water.  Back in the classroom we enjoyed challah and grape juice together and enjoyed a nice work period.  We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we will be back together next week to start talking about Thanksgiving.

Keshet:

We continue each morning with our journal writing. Often beginning with prompts on the board and then adding our own ending to sentences. The children have fun using their dictionaries to help them spell a word and also coming up with their own thoughts to write. 

In math we’re working on addition, with the montessori Golden Beads Material, adding 3 quantities in the hundreds. We’re practicing our sequencing of numbers from 1-20, and then counting and ordering by two’s. We measured lots of classroom items in feet (heel to toe using their own feet) and measuring smaller items in cubes and paper clips. Each time recording the answers, thus practicing writing the numbers neatly. 

We’re continuing with our exploration of Africa, this week with our focus on Namibia, Ghana, Madagascar and Egypt.  Kenya continues to be a country of interest - they love drawing African animals and the Kenyan flag, repeatedly!

In Hebrew we’re having fun with ‘I Spy’ with first letter clues written on the board in Hebrew. This has been a wonderful and fun way to remember the Hebrew words for common classroom objects, as well as recognizing the Hebrew letters with vowels.  

Elliot’s mom and baby brother joined us for Shabbat in the Chape, and then stayed for a little taste of Keshet Kindergarten once back in our classroom as we welcomed the Shabbat Queen (Shalom Aleichem) and enjoyed challah and grape juice. 

Mika took the Shabbat Box home and I know she’s excited to read up about Kof’s past weekend adventures at classmates homes. 

Shabbat Shalom and enjoy this week’s pictures https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ki7B1QymMTXCYuMz7