Garinim:

It's our second week of school and the children are beginning to find their groove!

We are continuing to focus on becoming comfortable with the routine and rhythm of our day, and things are progressing well!

During our morning circle time, the children have been practicing one another's names, along with the names of their teachers, and we have also been busy with lots of group work demonstrations to introduce some of the unfamiliar activities and materials in our classroom. 

A popular practical life work this week has been hammering golf tees into a piece of foam using a small wooden mallet. It takes a lot of coordination to hold the tee still with one hand while using the other to hammer it in! These skills are critical for many applications in life and academics, including handwriting later on. 

Another popular activity is our apple baking themed sensory bin, featuring small plastic apples, measuring cups and spoons, cinnamon oats, and muffin tins. The children have loved scooping and filling the tins with apples and nice-smelling oats, dumping them out, and repeating the process all over again.

Looking forward to next week, we will continue to establish the classroom routine and to try out some of the more unfamiliar classroom activities. We can't wait!

Judaica:

As part of the Judaica curriculum this week we continued using red, yellow and green paint/paper both in English and Hebrew. They were very busy using different mediums to make shofars using glue and paint. We had fun making apple prints with seeds. The children also created their own apple trees(etzim) complete with tapuchim (apples). 

This week we read, “It’s Shofar Time”, “Apples and Honey “ and “Happy Birthday World”. 

We sang “The apple and honey song” and had apples and honey on Thursday and Friday along with our challah and grape juice and closed the week with our Shabbat dance party!

Shanah Tovah Umetukah!

 

Alim:

This week we continued talking about good manners and classroom routines.  We had some new work presented to the children in Practical life.  We did a Pumpkin Scrubbing activity which involved multisteps like retrieving water, scrubbing the pumpkin, drying the pumpkin, pouring the water out, folding the drying cloth and then getting the activity ready for a friend. We discussed Rosh Hashana and sang fun songs.  We continue to practice praying Shema Israel.  Also, in Hebrew we will be saying the days of the week and months of the year.  There is a new nature table in the classroom for the children to explore.  There are pumpkins and gourds they love to hold and touch. The nature table will change throughout the year with different items from  I told the kiddos they can bring in small pumpkins, leaves or special rocks to place on our special nature table if they would like.

 

Monday-

We had our first birthday celebration.  Ella was our first birthday celebration of the year.  We enjoyed the delicious "cupcake cake "that was brought in for the treat by Ella’s mom.  All the children shared a very special wish for Ella on her birthday.  We painted apples for Rosh Hashanah and added tissue paper to make it a little more fancy. :)

 

Tuesday- 

A beekeeper came to the school and taught the children about what it is like caring for honeybees.  It was a very sweet presentation. The children were offered a spoon of honey which they all enjoyed.  We made cards for Rosh Hashanah.  The children painted their hands and stamped it onto the card.  

 

Wednesday-

This was our first day making Challah.  Every child was asked if they would like a chance to help mix the ingredients.  Also, we introduce our KINDNESS JAR to the children.  I talked to them about random acts of kindness among their peers, not when a teacher asks them to do something kind.  When these acts of kindness are done a pom pom is placed in the jar and once it is filled we take a group vote on the reward ( last year show and tell was the popular choice). I will send out an email when the jar is closer to being filled.

 

Thursday-

This was our first day of music class.  Morah Dawn came into our classroom and discussed things that would be done with the children.  They were sitting nicely and participating. 

 

Friday-

We went down to the Chapel and sang Shabbat Songs with Morah Lana.  Then we went back to the classroom and ate our yummy homemade Challah and some fruit.  We sang and read more Rosh Hashanah stories. 

 

Anafim:

What a wonderful second week we had.  This week we were busy talking about Rosh Hashanah (The Jewish New Year).  During circle time on Monday we enjoyed an apple taste test; we tried a slice of red, yellow and green apple.  Once all apples were tasted the children had a chance to tell everyone which slice they liked the best and then charted their favorite on our graph by placing a paper with their name on it in the column of their favorite color apple.  It was a little surprising how close the results were, check out the pictures to see what our favorites are.  

 

Tuesday we were so excited to welcome Stuart (a real live beekeeper) to our school.  We listened and learned to what he had to share about keeping bees.  It was so exciting to see so many of his tools and protective gear and learn about the process of collecting honey.  The children really enjoyed looking in on the bees he brought and of course tasting the honey.  

 

Wednesday was a very busy day, we talked about shofars (rams horns that we blow).  We learned the names of the different blasts and how many times the horn is sounded for each one.  Tekiyah (one long blast), Sh’varim (three shorter blasts), T’ruah (nine staccato blasts), and Tekiyah Gidolah (one blast as long as you can make it).  This was our first week making challah.  7 of the children had a chance to help make the challah dough.  We practiced measuring, counting, mixing and kneading.  It was so much fun and we are so excited to work more on these skills as the year progresses. 

 

Thursday the other half of the class enjoyed braiding the challah dough.  Through the High Holiday season we eat round challah so the children got to learn how to make a beautiful crown challah.  We also enjoyed our first music class of the year with Morah Dawn.  She taught/ reviewed singing position with us and then we did a name song that helped with rhythms.  During recess we had a chance to go into the garden and pulled up some of our carrots. Those in Anafim last year planted the carrot seeds in the spring and we had the chance to pick some of them today!! We then washed and peeled them and had the chance to try the super fresh carrots at lunch. Yum!

 

Friday we enjoyed heading down to the chapel with Alim and Keshet.  We loved singing songs with Morah Lana and marching around with the Torahs.  Once back in our classroom we enjoyed grape juice and challah (with honey for a sweet new year).  Everyone definitely agreed we made a delicious challah this week.  Shabbat Shalom, L’shana Tova!

 

Keshet:

We’re getting ready for Rosh Hashanah; hard at work practicing letter formation ‘r’ for rimmon (pomegranate), ‘sh’ for shofar, painting a RH still life with apples, honey and shofar, and spent some time each day diligently sewing a challah cover!!! We drew self portraits using a mirror and paying close attention to eye shape and color (you’ll see these portraits displayed in our classroom on Tuesday at our open house). Rosh Hashanah math included pomegranate seed number bonds (hope you had time to play - we sent them home on Monday), rainbow math - with focus on writing practice number ‘7’ and shofar blowing with explanation and counting- tekiah (1) shevarim (3 short sounds) teruah (9 short, quick sounds) and tekiah gadolah (1 LOOOOONG sound).  If you call those sounds, your child may demonstrate :) This all in preparation and for  familiarization with the holiday, and number ‘9’ writing practice. 

In keeping with our Rosh Hashanah theme in science we continued our lesson on bees, specifically, honey bees with a presentation from local beekeeper, Stuart, of Stone Wall Apiary. The children were so involved in asking questions and getting to view and hold some of the tools that Stuart brought to show us, and of course tasting the delicious honey!  We talked about oxidization (a big word!) as well and asked the question, “how do you keep apples from turning brown when you cut them?” We all made educated guesses and then put the question to the test, cutting up an apple and putting each piece in either lemon juice, water, salt water, vinegar or honey ( and of course a control piece) ask you child which one tasted the best and which solution worked the best, both answers surprised us!  In Hebrew we are learning a special song for our Hashem Sheli presentation and continuing to learn our letters, using yoga and letter writing practice. 

You will see a yellow folder in your child’s backpack each Friday, please enjoy looking through the contents together with your child and return the empty folder each Monday. 

 

See this week’s pictures here https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sb527mZXr3v3KmF96