Garinim

This week has been all about musical instruments at circle time.  Morah Wendy brought in a violin and saxophone, Evan brought in a banjo, and we took a trip down the hall to visit a piano and a guitar.  The children loved having the opportunities to try out the real instruments and listen to some simple songs on them.  We talked about instruments that have strings, ones that have keys, and ones that you blow into.  We read many books about musical instruments including, Ah, Music by Aliki, Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney, and I know a Shy Fellow who Swallowed a Cello by Barbara S. Garriel.  

 

We continued talking about Chesed (kindness) and this week focused on being kind to our friends and teachers. We talked about what we can do to be kind to our friends and teachers.  Things we talked about were treating our friends nicely, listening to what our friends have to say, and sharing toys with our peers.

 

One of the Montessori activities that kept us very busy this week was learning how to fold a small cloth.  The children enjoyed opening up the cloth and taking two sides and folding it down to meet the other sides.  They then turned the cloth and repeated the process on the other side.  The children also practiced opening and closing jars.  This activity also created a new activity as one child found that one of the containers fit inside of another.  We then spent a lot of time using a surprise box of utensils to try to get the smaller container out from the bigger one.  Finally at the end of the week we were able to free the smaller container much to the delight of the children.  

Next week we move onto talking about Thanksgiving!

 

Alim

This week we had a lot of fun.  There was a lot of creative art out on the shelves and paint to create art activities. The children enjoyed this a lot.   The Sound of the Week was “Mm”.  We read the Alphatale story called Monkey’s Miserable Monday.  The children really loved this silly story full of sounds beginning with “Mm”.  There were corresponding worksheets that the children were able to do for letter formation and letter- sound association.  There were a lot more math lessons shown in the classroom and the children really loved to explore these new math activities.  Next week we will do some special activities centering on Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for in our lives. It’s going to be a very special week.  

 

Alim Judaics

This week we are continuing to talk about ‘Kindness’ or Chesed in Hebrew.  We were busy painting and stamping our hands on a big Heart poster for our bulletin board in the hallway.  (see photo) Check out what your child said about how he/she shows ‘kindness’ to others. Morah Sandy will share this with you.  

YOGA Yeladim -   We enjoyed a Pumpkin patch Yoga themed class- the Jewish value - To care for our Earth / ‘Shmirat Ha-adamah’ was discussed.  

We sang a  fun song -  “I’ll water it, I’ll pull the weeds, Pumpkins come from Pumpkin seeds”

• While using a water can to water our pumpkins, and posing in our ‘pumpkin seed’ or child’s pose

Shabbat -  we celebrated singing and dancing - ‘Shabbat is here…’ flickering like candles , Sally the Camel has 5 / hamesh humps-  we counted to ‘5’ in hebrew and enjoyed reading the book - Shabbat can be…….learning about all that we can enjoy during Shabbat with our Families and friends and Jewish community. 

 

Keshet

This week we have been talking about ‘Me’ and ‘My Family’ and working on individual portraits, paying attention to facial details.  The project continues with the artwork as well as discussion of personal attributes - what makes each person special; favorite food, favorite activities… which were journal prompts this week.

We are exploring Hebrew words for colors, and fruit and matching picture and word cards, noticing the individual Hebrew letters. 

Now that the children are well versed in musical notation, we have individual music notes on cards that the children move around as they consider the tune for the song. They place the notes and clap the rhythm as they sing. 

In Art class the children traced and cut out various sized circles and created a Kandinsky inspired tree (see photo). 

Keshet is doing great in Hebrew.  We are up to the letter Zayin and the students are able to recognize the letters and say words that start with those letters.  They enjoy working in their “Robo” workbook and playing Hebrew letter games.

 

Keshet Yoga - We enjoyed practicing a ‘Keshet / Rainbow’ themed yoga class, swaying rainbow colored scarves in the air while stretching our bodies,  we practiced a few different ways to pose like a rainbow while sitting, standing and lifting our hips up and over into a beautiful Rainbow. We listened to the song...‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ and acted out, through Yoga - how rainbows are created-  when the sun touches the raindrops as they’re falling from the sky after a rainstorm.