Kitah Bet Explores the Weather

Now that fall has set in, Kitah Bet has been discussing the different types of weather we experience throughout the year. To do this we used water bottles filled with water and a representation of each type of weather inside - sunny, rainy, cloudy, snowy, and windy. After discussing them at circle time, the bottles were placed on the table as morning activities.

Becker noticed that both the rainy and snowy bottles had tiny, swirly sparkles.

Annabelle and Evan shaking the bottles.

Next we focused on the windy weather, blowing around all the fall leaves. Using leaf cookie cutters and fall-colored paint, we made our leaves blow against the blue sky. It was a good exercise in fine motor skills as well as planning - where did we want to place each leaf?

Sammy makes a leaf pile with hers.

 A windy leaf example.

Lunchtime Conversation--the Best!

What's Inside?

     Sometimes, things just happen.  There was a beautiful, but slightly broken, gourd on the playground.  We brought it into the classroom after recess.  It was just about time for lunch, so we sat at our tables.

     Just for the fun of it, we tried to guess what was inside our cracked gourd.  The gourd was broken; we would be able to take a good peek inside if pulled at the cracked opening.  Morah Susan held it up high, very high.  We could see the outside of the gourd, but not the inside.

     We went around the room asking all our Kitah Gimmel members to take a guess about the inside of the gourd.  The Morahs figured on some logical answers, but it turned out each and every child was in a very funny, and fun, mood.

     One of the girls guessed first. She said, "There's a crab inside!"  Maybe, but probably not, and all the children appreciated the humor in this response.  Everyone smiled, and then added their own silly answer.  "Its a snake!"  "There's a cockroach in there!" Later, the silliness increased, "No, there's a turtle inside!"

     After a while, we really went to town with this.  "There's a whale inside! A big mama whale!"  "No, an elephant!"  "A gorilla!" "No, a teeny-weeny little elephant!"

     One of the last responses was, "There's a monkey inside!"  This led to the group singing one of their favorite songs, "Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed."  The song ended with mama monkey putting all the monkeys back to bed.

     Not to be outdone, the song took a new turn:  one of the boys declared, "I have a joke!"  He then sang his own made-up song, "Three Little Elephants Jumping on a Bed."  It was the perfect take-off of the monkey song that we had just finished.  His song ended with all the elephants going off to jail!

     Then, we looked inside the gourd.  No crabs, turtles, whales, monkeys or elephants.  We saw the seeds and the fibrous insides of the gourd.  Reality may be fascinating, but our imaginations are truly entertaining!

     Needless to say, the Morahs enjoyed the lunchtime conversation!

Morah Susan and Morah Sterny

A Peek into Pre-KA

Look at how Eli is trying to stack the blocks.

In order to balance they need to be symmetrical. He tries, but the cylinder block falls over. He tries and tries again, rearranging the blocks slightly and trying different angles. And then, SUCCESS! Eli is so proud, he claps and says YAY! His Morahs and friends clap and cheer for him too.

Yonah enjoys music immensely!

We listen to music and sing songs together daily. Once a week Morah Adina comes to sing with us and to show us different instruments. Sometimes we get to play the instrument ourselves.

Adom can’t get enough of this sensory experience. Sitting outside the bin and reaching is not enough for him. He climbs in, sits inside and proceeds to see, touch, smell, taste and listen to the items in the sensory bin. Soon enough his brother joins him.

 Levi is loving the fresh air, open space, the sand, the bikes, the balls and the swings. Outside time might just be our favorite part of the day.

Leora is  playing with real-life, everyday objects and is being provided with an opportunity for open-ended discovery.

Morah Leah

Kitah Bet Welcomes Fall

To welcome the fall season, the children in Kitah Bet made fall collages. Using recycled flowers from last week's Shabbat dinner, the children carefully cut the stems and petals to form a rich collection of natural materials.

Some children preferred to cut the flower's petals while others chose to snip the thicker stems.

Using scissors (supervised, of course) is a good exercise in fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Some children said it was like giving the flowers a haircut!

Annabelle took the idea in another direction by putting some petals in the leftover water, creating a new discovery jar for our classroom.

Afterwards we glued our flower pieces together with leaves we had previously collected to make our fall collages. The children were proud to have contributed to the multi-step process and enjoyed discussing their work with their friends.

Squeezing the glue - another great fine motor exercise.

Becker and Maddy discuss their work.

Using found items promotes awareness of the changes occurring in the world around and enables the children to relate to them in tangible and meaningful ways.

Gourd to Know . . .

      We are not going to describe our Kitah Gimmel gourd still-life illustrations in this blog posting.  We've done that already, in the documentation outside our room.  We've written how the children used a variety of media to create their gourd studies.  Instead, let's talk about what comes after . . . and what came before, the creation of our colorful works of art.

           After our gourd paintings were dry and hanging up on display, we used smaller pieces of gourds for a math lesson.  During Circle Time, we used one-to-one correspondence to count our smaller gourd pieces.  The pieces that we didn't need remained in the dried gourd-top.  One side of the gourd-top is very smooth and orange, the underside is rough is white.  We learned that some people use gourd pieces as drinking cups and plates.

           Above:  Some of the fall items available in our room.  

We used these gourds and dried corn for our observational drawings--our still-life illustrations.  Then, we played "What's Missing" with four of the items.  We use our new vocabulary word, gourd, and we practice our recall skills in order to play this game.

          During the summer, I had visited the North Georgia Mountains.  While there, I stopped off at the Gourd Museum.  Yes indeed, there is a Gourd Museum, only two hours away from our Atlanta neighborhood.  There were several baskets of gourds.  There were also eating utensils made from gourds, as well as musical instruments.  If you'd like a bowl or a sitar made from a gourd, this Museum is the place for you.

      Above, a row of baskets, chockful of gourds.  Below, I'm wearing a gourd mask.

 Above:  remembering the process of creating our still-life paintings; below, some of the children's  renditions of our gourd collection.

     

Feel free to visit our room to take a peek at our artwork!

Fondly,

Morah Susan and Morah Sterny

A Bridge to KDH

From the first day of school,  we noticed the children of KDH  engaged in building bridges in our block area. We were excited to find something that engaged the children that we could explore together, so early in the year.

To foster this interest, we asked the children to bring in picture of bridges and put them up in our block area. We found a picture of Tashlich on the Brooklyn Bridge in the early 1900's. Then Elijah brought in a picture of his family on a bridge, saying Tashlich! Dovid is on the bridge in Piedmont Park,in his picture. Bridges are everywhere!

We read about bridges. Our favorite book so far is Let's Try it Out with Towers and Bridges by Seymour Simon. We liked the activities that Simon suggests. We built a human pyramid and learned about foundations. 

Can you build a strong bridge with blocks and paper? Yes,with arches and pleated paper. 

Don't forget Human bridges. That's us!!

How about working with straws and modeling clay to create buildings with strong foundations!

Micah's mom prepared and taught us how to make a plank bridge. Everyone painted planks (wide popsicle sticks), then we glued them onto long strips of balsa wood. Using the holes that Mrs. Linefsky drilled, we strung it up in our bridge corner. We can roll a spool across the bridge and look underneath to read our names!

Outside, we build bridges and enjoy playing on the wooden bridge.

This is just the beginning. 

We hope our parents will enjoy seeing the buildings on Parent night and we challenge you to build bridges too.

Morah Ruth   Morah Sara