Garinim

This has been a very busy week. The children have been discovering our five senses by searching for items in the classroom, tasting lemons, listening to songs, dancing to Chanukah music, and smelling delicious cinnamon! We have introduced our Montessori touch tablets to allow them to feel the difference between the roughest and softest textures. We read a great book, My Five Senses by Aliki.

As part of our Judaica lessons we have been using dreidels, gelt and playing the dreidel/sivivon game.  The children are excited to taste latkes/levivote and soufganyiot/doughnuts! It was fun to practice using a menorah/chanukia and real candles. We have made several different types of chanukiot, and sivivon art projects as a part of our celebration of Chanukah.

We have been practicing hard and can't wait to sing our Chanukah songs together on Monday night!

On Friday we read A Sense of Shabbat, a lovely book about the different things we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste during Shabbat, in keeping with the week’s theme. And of course, we enjoyed eating our favorite challah, which we made this week, with delicious honey.

 

Anafim

Monday there was so much excitement about the snow that fell.  The children excitedly entered the playground and were busy stomping in the snow, collecting it in buckets, making snow angels, and testing out how fast they went down the snow filled slides.  

This week we spent in the throws of Chanukah preparation.  We made our costumes for the Chanukah production; painted, sanded and glued together our chanukiyot; and did many different crafts with Chanukah themes.  

During circle time this week we spent a lot of time preparing for our performance and it really showed off during our dress rehearsal.  The children rocked it! Hopefully they perform just as well for the real deal on Monday evening!

This week our class once again made challah.  The children have really embraced the process of making it and are always so willing and excited to help out, they even keep me on my toes and remind me of what we should be doing when!  

On Friday we were joined by Alon’s parents where we heard the story about Joseph and the coat of many colors.  We also learned that he was quite the dreamer and enjoyed interpreting them.  After we enjoyed our challah and grape juice we gathered together on the rug to welcome Itamar’s parents and celebrated him turning 3 with our Montessori birthday celebration.  Thank you so much for coming in to share with us and for the delicious cupcakes.  

Shabbat Shalom, chag samaeach (happy holiday) and hope you have a great weekend, we will see you all on Monday evening!

 

Alim

This week we were very busy bees at school.  We finished several Holiday projects for Channukah. We finished our Menorahs that the children made with painted rocks.  Also, we made some snow globes with the children. The children made part of their prop for the play as well.  Also, we practiced the Channukah production twice on stage in the Auditorium.  It was super fun and exciting.  The kids are very excited about the play next week.

On Tuesday,  we had fun with Coach Oren in the gym.  

On Wednesday, we talked about the Parsha of the week and did an overview of the Hebrew letters.

On Friday,  we went down to the chapel with special guests, Taylor’s parents.  We all enjoyed the fun Shabbat songs and parsha story with Morah Lana.  The Shabbat Box went home with Taylor and we are so excited to hear all about her adventures with our classroom fox “Shual”. 

Keshet

As we wrap up the 2022 year, we are trying to complete projects. We have not quite achieved that, but our standards are high!  The science project, OUR BODY is complete and the Keshet kids are all lined up on our hallway walls, hand in hand. The final study was the Urinary System and suddenly everyone needed to go pee! Fortunately, the bladder is a muscle with a plug keeping it closed until the brain sends a message that the bladder is full and needing to be emptied … message from brain to body …‘go to the bathroom!’ They colored and cut out the kidneys, ureters (left and right) and bladder, all of which are nicely placed in the appropriate spots (or close to!) on their body cutout. We will send those home next week! And when you get them home, feel free to ask your child questions. 

The children chose math activities (games) this week experiencing addition (small number rods), subtraction (beads on pipe cleaners and number cards), division (sharing game) and of course, the dreidl game! They know the rules and though we did not practice with chocolate gelt (sorry kids) they were equally excited using colored counters. 

Each day we practiced our songs for Monday’s Channukah production, tried on our costumes and entertained the rest of the grades with our dress rehearsal on the stage on Thursday morning! We’re also singing a variety of Channukah songs and brachot so we are ready for the first night, on Sunday - and very excited!  Hope you enjoy the channukiah! See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/z8AvfMFwhFUw2ia58