Tzedakah box:  Our tzedakah box is always open for collection, but particularly on Fridays, we will encourage everyone to participate. We sing the tzedakah song, about helping others, and collectively aim to make a difference in the lives of those that could greatly benefit from our support.  This year we will support 'The Smile Train,' an organization that sponsors doctors around the world to perform cleft lip and palate surgery on children in 85 countries.  What a difference $250 can make in the life of a child -who would otherwise struggle to eat, drink, talk or smile. 

 

On Monday the children were excited to try out the apple peeler and corer, and then added all those sliced apples to our crock pot with a little water, cinnamon and sugar.  On Tuesday we all enjoyed delicious apple sauce.  A group of children were fascinated by the core that remained on the peeler/corer so we cut it in half to reveal the 'star'/ seeds.  If you find a scrunched up tissue in your child's backpack or lunchbox, it may be holding some apple seeds.  Your child wanted to bring theses home for planting.  Talking about planting, we have been enjoying the last of the cherry tomatoes from our garden , and also the string beans which were picked and consumed - every last one of them!  The carrot seeds that were planted at the end of May are only now being harvested - the carrot tops are growing and we're hoping the carrots in the ground are growing too. We did pull two - one was a fair size, the other was too tiny to even try.  We will give them a few more weeks and will try again in October, before the first frost.  

We read 'A Taste of Honey' by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace and discovered where honey comes from, how bees make honey, and how a 'smoker' is used to trick the bees away from the honey boxes.  We are playing games to identify all the traditional items that may be found on a Rosh Hashanah table (round challah, shofar, candles, pomegranate, apple, grape juice, kiddish cup, honey).  The mystery game was well received; the items are covered, one is removed and each child has a turn to guess which item is missing. We learned the song:

Dip the apple in the honey

Say a bracha loud and clear

L'Shana Tova u'metuka

Have a Happy Sweet New Year!

 

and also:

The shofar in the shul goes (tu tu tu) xx3

The shofar in the soul goes (tu tu tu) 

On Rosh Hashanah morning...

 

This week our themes of Fall and Rosh Hashana continued. We were very busy practicing cutting out shofar’s, creating bingo dotter shofar’s, and gluing textured paper on shofar’s, and painting large shofar’s at the easel. Even Morah Marisol’s daughter, Natalia, visited us to show us how she can blow a shofar! We also continued our apple tasting, but this time tried them with honey. Everyone enjoyed this special treat, while singing “Dip the Apples in the Honey.” Thank you to everyone that contributed their recycling to our “grocery store”. We now have plenty of items and we have been practicing sorting, counting (in English and Hebrew), and also learning some Hebrew vocabulary. Eggs “bateszim”, milk “chalav, " cake “ooh,” ice cream “glida,” and pasta “pasta!” We are going to continue with this activity at group time, adding more items to be sorted and “bought” and add to our Hebrew vocabulary as well.

We changed over to a water table this week and practiced mixing fall colors in the water.

Books we read: “Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf," “Sammy Spider’s First Rosh Hashanah,” “Wonderfall,” “The World’s Birthday,” and “Today is the Birthday of the World”. 

On Thursday both classes came together to celebrate Jakob’s third birthday! We all participated as we told the story of baby Jakob growing up, his mom shared some stories and then Jakob called upon his friends to sing Happy Birthday in eight languages. Sitting outside on our outdoor stage eating birthday cookies with sprinkles is always fun!

 

Monday, September 30 - Rosh Hashanah, no school

Tuesday, October 1 - Rosh Hashanah, no school

Monday, October 7 - Firefighter visit

Tuesday, October 8 -Erev Yom Kippur, noon dismissal

Wednesday, October 9- Yom Kippur, no school

Monday, October 14 - Columbus Day and Sukkot, no school

Tuesday, October 15 -Sukkot, no school

Friday, October 18 - Ezra Special Person Day, 10:30am-12:30pm (Grandparents or Special Person visit, details to follow soon)

Monday, October 21 - Shemini Atzeret, no school

Tuesday, October 22 -Simchat Torah, no school

Friday, November 1 - Montessori Preschool Picture Day

 

Please see our photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/u2SVJ8rNvqHXaUi27