Garinim:

The theme this week was all about leaves. The leaves falling off the trees, different types of nuts we find on the ground and cold weather vegetables such as pumpkins. We discussed how the leaves/alim changed colors from green/yarok to red/adom, yellow/tsahov and orange/katom. The children were able to feel a few seeds/garinim from a pumpkin. We picked the last of the flowers from our garden and enjoyed tasting chives. We added some flower/prachim arranging to make our classroom beautiful. 

In our Practical Life area we added bean pouring, and water transferring with a sponge. In the Math center we added pumpkin counting 1-6. The children used tongs to transfer the mini pumpkins to a tray with 6 sections.

The children created tree/etz  "art" using their hand and arm. Then we painted glue and sprinkled it with dry leaves. Scissors are a part of our art area, so clippings of yellow and red were added to a leaf tray. The children were able to make their own leaf collage using a glue stick. Our cinnamon scented red playdough is also a favorite activity. They used a rolling pin and leaf shaped cookie cutters.

The children sliced bananas for their morning snack throughout the week. Of course the children again had to practice scrubbing their hands before touching food! They enjoyed holding a (plastic) knife to slice the banana. They had a lesson on how to hold a knife, cut the fruit without it falling on the floor (a few slices were dropped, but luckily we had many bananas) and then depositing it into a bowl. Food preparation is fun for the children, and hopefully it will encourage them to explore a variety of new foods.  A big thanks to the family that contributed the bananas.

Wednesday we had our favorite challah dough making day! The children love kneading the dough. 

Morah Marta read Grow a Pumpkin Pie by Jane E. Gerver and Fall Changes by Ellen B. Senisi

Thursday, Morah Dawn introduced loud and soft drumming to the children! They had so much fun tapping on the double drum. Some of the children helped braid challah dough while some decided to choose different "works" in the classroom.

Then onto Friday! We love going to celebrate Shabbat in the Chapel. The children were having so much fun singing all the Shabbat songs today. Morah Lana read us a story called Sarah Laughs. This correlates to the Parsha this week that Hashem tells Sarah that she will have a baby and Sarah laughs because she was 90 years old. We closed the day with a Shabbat dance party in the classroom and read a challah story before lunch. We hope that the next family enjoys the Shabbat Box and your surprise guest!

 

Alim:

This week we talked about emotions and feelings. There is emotional card matching and a mirror with different images of children faces that is attached to it.  

 

Monday-  We went over the new activities in the classroom.   We practiced the Sound of the Week "Qq".  We read the alphatale book The Quiet Quail.   There were worksheets that were available to isolate that particular sound.  Also, we had gym class with Coach Oren. 

 

Tuesday- We did an overview of the continents and the World Map was shown.  We practiced the Continent Song.  

 

Wednesday-  A group lesson of the Triangular Box was given to the classroom. We talked about different types of triangles.

 

Thursday- We had a group lesson with the Montessori Geometric Solids. The geometric solids that were discussed were the ovoid, sphere, rectangular prism, triangular prism,  cube,   pyramid, cone, cylinder, ellipsoid.  Morah Dawn came into our classroom and went over the Piano(soft) and Forte(loud) with the students with a fun movement activity.

 

Friday-  We went down to the chapel to enjoy Shabbat with the other Montessori classrooms.  Levi and his family came in to help celebrate Shabbat.  The Shabbat box went home with Taylor's family.  We are excited to hear about the adventures with Shaul.  Yay!

 

Alim Judaics:

Alim worked hard this week. More children finished their Alef Bet books ( they are being sent home as they are done) and some started coloring their map of Israel.

On Monday we talked about what a Mitzvah is and we made a list of mitzvot that we could do.

On Tuesday we learned about colors in Hebrew and read a book about them. We also ‘dipped our toes’ in Portuguese and learned a song about colors.

Wednesday we discussed the land of Israel, read the book called “ Ella’s trip to Israel “ and danced some Israeli folk dance.

Thursday we reviewed everything we learned this week and read the Alef Bet book. It was so much fun!

Friday we celebrated Shabbat and as usual enjoyed our challah and grape juice.

Have a wonderful weekend and Shabbat Shalom.

Anafim:

What an exciting week we had.  We were so lucky to have Morah Marta back with us on Monday while Morah Wendy was doing her civic duty and attending jury duty.  The children were all very excited to show her how much they have grown in the past weeks and all the new work they have in the classroom.  At circle time we enjoyed an introduction to pumpkins!  We talked about what color they are, where we can find them, and if anyone had any at home; spoiler alert- almost everyone said they do!  We enjoyed gym class with Coach Oren as well.  This week Coach taught us how to play Red Light, Green Light.  We had so much fun racing when we heard green and trying to stop on red. 

Tuesday Morah Lana joined us and it was so exciting to have her lead circle time.  We taught her a couple of the songs we do every day and she taught us a couple as well!  We had a nice long work period and were all super excited to work with Morah Lana.   She worked with different children on different language and math activities.  We also enjoyed a fun game to help us learn the colors blue and green in Hebrew (k’chol and yarok) before heading out to the playground. 

Wednesday was busy.  Morah Wendy brought in a real pumpkin for us to explore and we excitedly watched as she cut it open.  We discussed what we thought would be inside (everyone agreed there would definitely be seeds) and also learned that there would be pulp inside.  Most of the children were not sure what pulp is, so we proceeded to cut open the pumpkin and see and feel the pulp for ourselves.  We also talked a bit about why there are seeds inside of the pumpkin (so they can be planted and grow more pumpkin plants in the future).  The children enjoyed having the pumpkin on a tray for them to explore the inside and out throughout the rest of the week.  We were also busy making challah dough on Wednesday.  It was very exciting to watch one of our friends pour oil into the measuring cup and then into the bowl.  Everyone is getting so good at counting all the scoops of yeast and flour that they need to add to the big mixing bowl.  We all love getting our hands into the dough and kneading it, especially because this is the day the children are allowed to “mash and bash” the dough.

Thursday we briefly spent time looking at the life cycle of a pumpkin.  We talked about how a pumpkin starts out as a seed, which starts to grow a couple of seed leaves.  These leaves shrivel up as new prickly leaves take their place and the whole stem grows into a long vine with lots of leaves.  On the vine grows flowers and when the flowers are about to fall off, a small green bud appears.  This grows bigger and then eventually turns orange (the pumpkins we know and love).  Inside the pumpkin are lots of seeds that start up all over again.  We braided our challah and left it to rest a bit more while we enjoyed music with Morah Dawn.  We once again looked at the different volume markings and then had a chance to try out these different playing volumes on the bongos.  Before heading outside we were introduced to the second letter of the aleph-bet ב (bet).  We reviewed the letter aleph and then used cards with the letters on them to play a little hide and seek.  The children covered their eyes and the teachers hid the א and ב cards around the classroom.  The children then opened their eyes and had to search for which letter the teachers named.  They had so much fun looking around the classroom for these cards. 

Friday we rushed inside to get ready for Shabbat in the chapel.  As we were lined up we were joined by Theo’s mom and dad as our Shabbat guests.  We sang on our way down and once we were there.  We heard a book about Sarah and how she longed for a child and stopped laughing and having fun while she waited for her opportunity.  Eventually, she finally became pregnant with a little boy and named him Isaac, which means laughter.  Back in the classroom we enjoyed challah and grape juice together with all of our brachot (blessings).  A few friends enjoyed starting a sewing project making their very own pillow shaped like a pumpkin.  Many of the children were very intrigued by this and we will have lots of time next week for all those that want to make one, to do so.  We will continue to talk about fall next week, pumpkins and a little about some of the fall creatures we see.  Have a wonderful weekend, Shabbat Shalom. 

 

Keshet:

Our daily routine begins with Morning Group, tefillah and news, daily journal writing and then the children select an activity from the Language shelves, then a Math activity, and thereafter, any activity of their choice - on their own or with a friend.  Following this is group Math, Hebrew, and later in the day, Geography/ Culture. 

The children are well into this routine, and after all the initial writing pages, they are now onto the fifth page of their journal!  If you are missing seeing the daily writing pages sent home each Friday, it’s because they have progressed to journal compilations!  Along with the journals, each child has their own dictionary as they are encouraged to ask for words to be written for them as needed.  It’s so exciting to see them not only copying the writing prompt from the board, but now adding a word or two to complete the sentence.

In Math they are practicing with the Snake Game - counting bead chains to 10 and exchanging for a ten bar… working their way through the colorful beaded ‘snake’ and then noticing, upon completion of the activity, how counting in tens is quicker than counting beads one by one. We are also exploring ‘bundles of 5’ - counting a handful of buttons and representing them with popsicle sticks, and later recording these on worksheets.  We continue counting in two’s and encourage you to play this counting game at any opportunity - it’s fun for them! Group Math this week also included number lines and addition using a number line - taught through stories. 

Geography continues, we’re now exploring Africa, starting enthusiastically right at the bottom of the continent with South Africa. You may want to ask your child about the specific colors on the pretty South African flag - particularly what the yellow represents (gold) and your child may even entertain you with an ‘Ipi Tombi’  gold miner dance! (Or their memory of Morah Lana’s crazy version of that goldminer gumboot dance). You may hear about sharks in the Indian Ocean, swimming with penguins at Boulders Beach, the ‘tablecloth on Table Mountain’, the baboons at Cape Point, ostriches, Queen proteas… or maybe take your family on a visit and see for yourself. Kenya was another favorite, with all the African animals, the grass huts, school uniforms worn by all 40  children in the classroom! The Masai people of Kenya wear beautiful, multi-colored traditional beaded necklaces, so of course we made some too. We also read the primatologist and anthropologist, Jane Goodall’s story, The Watcher, describing her life with the chimps. 

Continuing with Africa, in Music with Morah Dawn they learned about Congolese music, using an African shekere! Davey performed on the cymbals and everyone drew their favorite instrument while listening to African music. 

Morah Helene came on Friday and played the autoharp with the Keshet class - what a treat! They sang and acted out the animal actions on cue. 

See this week’s pictures here https://photos.app.goo.gl/1AZTZH3LsX1gUk9G6