Garinim

 

Fall is in the air!

 

This week the children enjoyed learning about squirrels, acorns, and autumn leaves, integrated into their usual work. We started off the week on Wednesday by talking together at circle time about what we know about acorns and squirrels. The children could relate to where we often see squirrels- many said that they have seen them in their yard at home, and sometimes we even see one on the playground at school!

 

Thursday, we had a very special and exciting visit from a fire truck! The children did a fantastic job sitting and listening to the firefighters explain their job and how to stay safe at home around fire! The children were given the opportunity to take a peek inside the fire truck, too!

 

Friday was another special day because we joined our friends from the other Montessori classes in the chapel for Shabbat! The children once again did a wonderful job walking together to the chapel, sitting and singing lots of fun Shabbat songs as a big group! Then we returned to our classroom for grape juice and challah. We can’t wait to do it again next Friday!

 

Next week we’ll continue our fall theme and add some pumpkins into the mix as well!

 

Since we have have returned from Simchat Torah we have been discussing the importance of Mitzvot/good deeds in our everyday lives. We read Motti the Mitzvah Mouse, a delightful tale(tail) about a tiny mouse that does some amazing mitzvot for such a tiny little guy! 

 

Today we enjoyed attending Shabbat Services with the Alim, Anafim,and Keshet classrooms! We learned about the creation of the world as told in the Torah in the first Parshah of Bereshit. 

 

Anafim

We sure have been busy this week!  These short weeks have really had us squeezing so many activities into such a short amount of time.  This week we talked about our current season.  We learned that it has two names, Autumn and Fall, and that fall is the season’s nickname.  The question was posed to the children, why do you think this season is sometimes called fall?, and the children enjoyed working as a group to put the pieces together to come up with that it’s because the leaves fall from the trees during this time of year! We focused on fall leaves this week and discussed what colors they can be.  We enjoyed looking and identifying the different colors in English and Hebrew, red- adom, yellow- tzahov, orange- katom,and brown- choom.  We also learned that in Hebrew the word for leaf is aleh.  Our art project this week was creating an abstract fall tree.  We had leaf stamps, a leaf paper punch and leaf play dough cutters out as well. 

 

On Thursday we enjoyed a visit from the Woodbridge fire department, for fire safety month.  We are doing a fire safety unit at the end of the month, but this is when the fire fighters could come and visit our school so we jumped on the opportunity to have them come a bit early.  It was so exciting to see real firefighters and learn a bit about what to do in case of a fire.  When we do our unit, we will talk a lot more about these topics and be able to reflect back on the information we learned.  The highlight for the children from this visit was definitely having the chance to try on a real fire hat and fire coat, as well as going inside the fire truck and sitting in the seats so high up.

 

Friday brought our weekly trip to the chapel.  We love having the chance to be with all of the other classes for this special time.  We sang about challah, peace and Israel.  We marched around with our stuffed Torahs and listened to the story of creation. We had so much fun all getting a prop to help tell the story of what was created on each day.  Back in the classroom Abby and Alon were the Shabbat helpers and helped bring in Shabbat by leading the prayers.

 

Next week we will continue talking about fall!

 

Alim-

This week we continued with the Primary color Yellow theme.  We had a discussion about the color Yellow and how it applies to color theory.  The classroom had different activities in Practical Life and in Art.  We celebrated Eli’s birthday.  Also, the kids really enjoyed the visit from the Firemen.  All the children had a chance to sit on the firetruck.  It was a blast for them.  We made Challah this week and the children seem to really be enjoying being Chefs.  Next week,  our classroom will transform to all BLUE in Art and Practical Life.   Have a great weekend.

 

Keshet

It’s Fire Safety month and though we planned this for the end of the month, the Woodbridge Fire Department squeezed us in for a visit on Thursday.  With some discussion about fire safety, ‘get down and go’ we discussed what we would do in an emergency situation, which included discussion about our emergency window. Our plans and preparedness involve moving to the classroom door as soon as the alarm is heard, no talking and following the teacher out through the school doors. The fire fighters spoke about calling 911 in an emergency, ‘getting out in a hurry’ and ‘stop drop and roll’ which Ezra demonstrated for us all, on the pavement in front of the fire truck! The children took turns trying on the firefighters VERY HEAVY jacket and helmet, and had the opportunity to look through the special flashlight to see what the firefighters might see even with a lot of smoke around. Of course the visit would not be complete without stepping into the fire engine, pressing a few buttons and waving goodbye even as the siren sounded and the fire truck exited the premises. Enjoy the photos! 

Letter practice within the lines this week was the letter ‘f’ and we introduced the word ‘fire’ with an introduction to the rule of the ‘fairy e’. 

 

In Hebrew,this week we went over the letters tav and bet. We learned their sounds, how to identify them and we had different activities incorporating the letters. We are moving along in our Hebrew book and learning the Hebrew names of common classroom items. 

 

We started our geography unit with the globe of our world / Earth, the continent song, and an introduction to the oceans. We are pin-pricking the continents from our Continent Puzzle, with some pictures and stories to go along, and so far we have the biggest continent, Asia, and North America outlined and placed in their folders, waiting for the bigger project. 

 

Shabbat in the Chapel was the very first story in the Torah, parsha Bereishit / Genesis. We all took part contributing to the story by walking up and adding props as we recreated the Creation of the World. The Keshet students helped the younger Montessori students and felt very proud of themselves!

 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/kNTFpFsw9gjqZBCT9