Garinim

This week we had a great time learning about farm animals.  We enjoyed sorting farm animals, looking at pictures of different animals and talking about what kind of animals we might find on a farm.  We of course sang “Old McDonald had a farm” and enjoyed coming up with all the noises that the animals made.  At the easel the children had the opportunity to paint with brown, white and pink this week using some farm animals as inspiration.   We had two large farm floor puzzles out this week and our puzzle kids really had a great time working on putting those together.  The lacing farm animals were also quite popular as the children practiced putting the string in the holes and pulling it out the other side.  

Our sound of the week was “f” because it’s the first sound in ‘farm’.  In our sound basket we had a foot, fox, flag, felt, flower, frog, and fish.  We enjoyed little games with these props during circle time as well, especially the “what’s missing” game.  

Duplos were added to our building area and the children enjoyed creating so many different structures.  They worked cooperatively at times and independently at others to see what they could build.  

Shabbat’s arrival brought a sense of calm to our week and we enjoyed a lovely circle time together singing songs and talking about what our favorite farm animal is.   We also discussed what we might be doing over our break.  Enjoy your time together!

On Friday we celebrated R.J’s third birthday with singing and a special treat. 

 

Alim

This week we had fun studying the US Post Office.  We read a lot of books and had fun activities regarding this subject throughout the classroom.  Each child worked on a very special letter that will be going home soon.  This was a fun activity for the kids because they learned first hand all the steps on how to mail a letter.  They were super excited especially when we placed it in our school mailbox.  The children really enjoyed this unit.  Look out for the mail that will be arriving home soon.  

 

Alim Judaics  -  We learned the Hebrew letter ‘dalet’.  We sounded out the ‘d’ sound and enjoyed learning a few Hebrew words that begin with this letter, such as d’vash/honey, degel/flag, dagim/fish and dreidel.  We took turns tracing our finger over the sandpaper ‘dalet’ letter block.  The children enjoyed coloring a large letter ‘dalet’ in the art area.  We watched Shalom Sesame’s mini video on the ‘dalet’ letter.  This was a big hit. 

• We sang the Alef-Bet in Hebrew together a few times and read the book, Alef-Bet by Michelle Edwards as she introduces each letter with fun illustrations and one Hebrew word that begins with each letter.  We had fun positioning our bodies into the dalet ‘yoga’ pose.

• Alim Shabbat Celebration-  This week’s Shabbat helpers were Paige and Emily K. We danced to Andi Joseph’s music; ‘We sing Shabbat, we sing Shalom’, L’cha Dodi - which means ‘come my friend’ (welcoming the Sabbath) swaying scarves in the air and ‘Shabbat Shalom to you’.  We read the book, What Makes Someone a Jew? Celebrating diversity and celebrating ‘Shabbat’ is definitely one way to make someone a ‘Jew’.  We finished by singing our prayers together over the candles, Kiddush cup & Challah.

 

Keshet

Color exploration continued as the students worked with colored cellophane papers - layering papers to create new colors and designs. They have been introduced to color mixing of paints, using an artist palette, feeling very professional standing beside the easel! 

In Science class, everyone created their own color wheel, tracing around six fraction pieces to create equal areas to color accordingly; primary colors with secondary colors in between. They worked very methodically and were excited for the end result - watching the colors merge by spinning the wheel. Equally exciting was the ‘creating a rainbow’ experiment with paper towel, washable markers and two bowls of water. 

We are working on subtraction, with number stories, which included paper balloons and colored strings, and lots of storytelling (and recording results on their number bond papers). The Montessori ‘Negative Snake Game’ is being introduced one at a time, as the children count to ten, replace colored beads with golden 10-bars and remainder black bead bars. An assortment of gray bead bars are interspersed in the ‘colored snake’ and get ‘taken away’.  It sounds complicated, but very hands-on - and a challenge, as overheard… ‘this is hard work for a Kindergartner’. 

Another week of fun and excitement!

 

Keshet Yoga Yeladim - This week’s Yoga theme was ‘G’milut Chasadim’/ Random Acts of Kindness -  stretching to ‘Al Shlosha D’varim’ - (The world stands on 3 things- Torah, Avodah & G’milut Chasadim/ random acts of kindness), Saluting the Sun and practicing our ‘Shalom Begins With Me’ meditation using our hand yoga mudra - We learned that ‘ahava’ means love in Hebrew and enjoyed acting out a short story about different acts of loving kindness we can share with others - through yoga and movement.

 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/6XHye24qEJuPUiMM7