Garinim:

This week is fire prevention week. We have been discussing what to do in case there was a fire, i.e. get out of the house, call 911, stop drop and roll if your clothes are on fire. We spoke about the protective clothing and equipment firefighters wear and use during a fire. 

Tuesday we were so lucky to see a real firefighter (kabaa’i ) and fire truck (masa’eet ki boo’i aish)! The children were able to touch a helmet (super big and heavy) and a nozzle to put out fires (also really heavy!). We were able to climb through the cab of the truck and sat on the front of the fire truck for a quick picture. We heard the loud siren and horn (it was very noisy.)

Whooo hooo on Wednesday we had so much fun making our challah dough for Shabbat! Art and practical life include tonging and transferring blue stones (for water/mayim), and a water transfer work using a sponge , gluing red shapes to a fire truck, painting fire on large paper and coloring a fire truck with markers. Phew, we have been very busy.

Thursday we had 100% participation with our challah braiding with the entire classroom getting messy again! So much fun. We sang a fun song that Morah Marta taught, Five Little Peas. We read Firefighters to the Rescue and sang firefighting songs and pretended to drive a real fire truck.

Friday was a great time in the B'nai Jacob Chapel. Morah Lana read us a Torah story about the creation. She had all sorts of props from the sky, moon ,clouds, birds, fish, animals and people. All the children  enjoyed participating bringing their props up to the Bimah! The children learned Kachol V Lavan and the teachers waved our large Israeli flags down to the Chapel and while we sang! It was a very special Shabbat indeed. It was back to the classroom to eat our yummy challah :). After our snack we had a super fun Shabbat dance party in our classroom. We waved scarves around while dancing to Bim Bam and other favorite Shabbat tunes! The Garinim class joined the Alim and Anafim classrooms in the gym to have a special Shabbat dance party! We danced to the freeze dance, limbo and our favorite The Floor is Lava! As you will see each week a different family will receive our Shabbat Box. In it are two mini challot, candles and grape juice to share for your Shabbat. There is a journal with a special tiny surprise inside. Bring the box back on Monday and we will read what you all did with the surprise guest.

Alim:

This week we discussed the secondary color green.  The classroom shelves were changed in practical life and art activities to all green.  There were several new lessons demonstrated to the children like leaf washing and Sponge squeezing in Practical Life.  In art,  we mixed many playdough (yellow and blue) pieces to make the color green.  Also,  we mixed those colors with paint to make green.  The color transformed in front of the children's eyes which was fun.

On Monday,  we reviewed the Sound of the week "Ff".  We read the book Fif's flute. There were little"f" booklets made for children to practice the sound. Also, we reviewed the Sandpaper letter f and reviewed the letter formation sheets and sound sheets for the letter f.

On Tuesday,   we had a visit from the Woodbridge Fire Department for fire safety week.   In the class we learned out to say Fireman, fire truck, fire and water in Hebrew.

On Wednesday, we had Eli's birthday celebration.  The children had a delicious snack.  All the kids had nice birthday wishes for Eli.  We talked about Bereshit and listened to the story of how god created the world.

On Thursday, Morah Dawn came to the classroom.  The children did a rhythmic song and there were dance moves with the drums, with each child taking their turn.

We decorated our kippot, which they lov e wearing each Friday for Shabbat in the Chapel.  We discussed in Hebrew what God created each day and they saw the world in ‘being  created’ day by day.

On Friday,  we went down to the Chapel and sang songs with Morah Lana.  We went back to the classroom and had some challah and grape juice with our classmates.  We celebrated with Yoav's family.  We started the Shabbat Box this week with the children.  This week Ella's family will have the box.  We are looking forward to hearing about the adventures with Ella and Shual( our classroom fox).  Have a nice weekend. 

Anafim:

This week was fire prevention and safety week, so of course that’s what we focused on in our classroom.  The highlight of the week was definitely the fire fighters and fire truck coming for a visit on Tuesday.  Some of our favorite activities this week included using spray bottles to squirt liquid water color onto coffee filter flames, painting paper plates to make our own fire hats, finding starting sounds of different fire safety words and working with a large die for a probability/counting game.

We learned what you should do when your clothes are on fire; stop drop and roll.  We enjoyed practicing this at circle.  We also discussed what you should do if there is a fire in the building you are in.  See if your child remembers that they should feel the door with the back of their hand, stay low and go.  We practiced crawling through “smoke” and made our way to the door.  We discussed what would happen at school if there was a fire.  How we would go quickly but safely outside as a class and wait for Liz or Tani to instruct us on what to do next.

On Monday several children helped to make some new play dough for our class.  We decided to make blue this time so we could pretend it was water and put it on some pictures of fires to help put them out.  We also enjoyed our cutting strips this week that were comprised of different fire related pictures.  Unfortunately Coach Oren was sick so we weren’t able to have gym class, we hope he is feeling better for next week.

Tuesday was the peak of the week.  Two Woodbridge fire fighters came with a real fire truck.  The fire fighters talked to us about what to do in a fire and ways to stay safe from fire.  They showed us lots of their tools and we even got to test some out.  They showed us the jaws of life and how it spreads open to get into cars when their doors are stuck, their heavy duty flashlights, hose nozzles, and more.  We even had a chance to try on their helmets and coat.  They sure were heavy!  We had the opportunity to climb up into the fire truck and walk through it while looking at the seats and more equipment.  We even had time to pause at the front of the truck for a picture! Check it out in the photo album.

Wednesday Morah Lana joined us for circle time and enjoyed leading us in the day of the week, weather and spent some time talking about the fall leaves.  She taught us a new song about the leaves colors during fall and what we can do with the leaves.  We spent lots of time working and the children had the chance to receive presentations on work they were interested in trying out before half the class gathered to make the challah dough.

Thursday we enjoyed looking at a new letter sound “f”.  We were so excited because fire and fire truck both start with this sound!  We enjoyed looking at all the objects in the sound pouch.  We mixed up the “f” sound pouch objects with “s” and then had fun separating them back out.  See if your child can come up with some “f” words.   We also worked really hard on our new Shabbat box.  First we covered the box in fabric, then all the children had a chance to write their name on the box!  It looks amazing, and all the children are so proud of it!  This will rotate home with all the children this year to help you celebrate Shabbat together.  Morah Dawn also visited and again brought the bongos.  We practiced our beats song again and man are the children getting good at it!

Friday we joined the rest of the Montessori classes down in the chapel for Shabbat.  Each class carried their large Israeli flag and waved it as we walked down together singing songs about Israel.  We had a little tribute to Israel by singing about peace and singing k’chol v lavan (blue and white- it’s a famous song about the Israeli flag).  Morah Lana led us in some of our favorite Shabbat songs as well as shared a little bit about the Torah portion.  This week was focused on the story of creation.  Each child was given a prop to represent one of the days of the creation story.  Once we were all finished we had a beautiful display.  On our way back we again waved our flags and sang for Israel.  Back in the classroom we enjoyed welcoming Shabbat together and enjoyed our challah and grape juice.  Have a wonderful peaceful weekend.

 

Keshet:

October is fire prevention month and our Montessori students learned first hand from the Woodbridge fire fighters how to react in a fire situation.  The Keshet kids had already learned a bit about this and had all the answers.  Ask your child what number to call in an emergency situation.  What we will do if we see or smell smoke or fire; line up at the door immediately - fire alarm will have been activated, a teacher will touch the door to make sure there is no fire on the other side of the door, and exit the building quickly and quietly.  We have an emergency escape window in our classroom and we spoke about that too. Your child may have asked you to show them the smoke detectors in your house - we spoke about the one in our classroom. 

English writing practice has progressed to simple sentences, drawing attention to spaces between words.  The theme of ‘fire prevention’ (fire trucks and fire safety) was incorporated into both group writing and math, the latter of which included number bond stories using scenarios and parts of a fire truck. 

We harvested carrots from our summer garden and guessed how many there were altogether.  Ranging from 10 to 200, Ivri was the closest with a guess of 70 carrots (we counted 68) and after measuring individual carrots and playing number bond stories (bonds of 8) we washed the carrots and some children enjoyed them at lunchtime. 

We have begun our geography unit in science. We talked about the globe, how many continents there are (ask your child to sing you the song) and how many oceans. We talked about the different temperatures of the oceans, the North and South Pole and the equator. Ask your child about this. We began to go into more general detail about the continents beginning with North America and South America. We have been busy cutting out continents using the pin pricking method for our globe project. 

In Hebrew we have been busy learning songs to help us remember both the days of the week and some body parts in Hebrew. We also just began learning a beautiful rendition of veavhta lereacha kamocha.  

The Shabbat Box rotation began today, and Davie’s name was drawn as the first recipient!  We look forward to hearing all about Kuf’s (our classroom monkey) weekend adventures.  

See this week’s pictures here https://photos.app.goo.gl/AUdjs51LyiTdD1Rs5