Model Seder Preparation in KDH

Kitah Daled Hey children are Seder experts. 

They prepared all the foods for today's model Seder.

Peeling and Grating Apples for Charoset

Peeling and Grating Horseradish Root Maror

  

Washing and Checking Lettuce for Maror and Korech Sandwich

Peeling Hard Boiled Eggs

Parsley for Karpas From Our Garden

Mixing the Batter for the Brownies

Setting the Table

Great Job -  Kitah Daley Hey!!!

Morah Ruth

                                             Of Exhaustion and Kindness

           (Leaving the Chuppah with my Two Brothers, one of my sisters and Mom) 

It is really important that our children be kind and nice and polite, even expecting an extra measure of goodness that when they don't display it we are can get exasperated.   We think we raised them to be better, or at least we thought we did, to be patient when their sibling is annoying them, to share a new toy, to have tolerance for every child in their class.  In the society we live in, tolerance, kindness, good deeds, are paramount. What we also need are reminders that it is an ongoing process, that will probably continue for most of ours and their lives. Recently while on a plane, where most life affirming events take place anyway, I was reminded of this fact. Good middot, or manners or acts of kindness are not easy to practice or matters of habit; they are hard work, constantly. I stood up at the end of a short flight but a long day. I was in NY for my first cousins wedding, stayed up dancing till late, up early to start the day visiting with family and friends and now it was after midnight on a much delayed flight. My legs were in agony, walking all day and low blood circulation at its finest. My body was achy; I just wanted to find my car, shower and get to sleep. As I rose from my seat right in front of me was a woman who looked similar to me. Many years older and wearier, but definitely one of my own with her hair covered as mine. In the instant that our eyes met, I had the most exhausting thought- that I must offer to give her a ride, spend 30-40 minutes walking at her pace through the airport, not my usual 15 minute dash, make small talk (which was worse at this hour? Not being able to walk my usual speedy pace, or talking- I did not know) and drive her to where she was going, out of my way but probably not enough to warrant not offering her a ride at this late hour.

I was miserable at the thought. Miserable that I felt compelled to the do the right thing and miserable about having to do it. She quickly asked me, “are you from Toco Hills?" I said "no, I am not. Is that where you are going?" With which she replied, "yes but my daughter in law is getting me". Whew! Was I relieved, what was left of my night could go on as planned. I smiled, I said goodbye, I hurried out of that plane, rushed to the escalator and made my way speedily to my car. But the entire drive home I could not get myself out of my head. I don't remember the last time feeling an obligation so heavy and unpleasant and then such relief at its termination. I'm a pretty helpful gal. I work hard and do my share of good deeds like the rest of them. Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion or something else, having to be there for a complete stranger. Whatever it was, here is how I would like to internalize this event. When my children don't want to be kind, I will now remember how difficult this was for me and I will not be astonished or confounded by their lack of good grace, I will understand that we all have good intentions and know what the right thing to do is, but sometimes, it is just so hard. It might be tiredness, stress, emotions, or plain bad mood, all of these things get in the way of doing good, now I hope to remember this and now I hope to judge you less and help you accomplish more.  It still doesn't me we don't have to do it---I just got lucky this one time.    

100th Day in KDH

KDH counted, counted and counted. Last Thursday, we finally reached 100. We celebrated painting 100 dots, making 100 day glasses, exercising with 100 jumps. There was so much to do...We continued on day 101 using the 100 items that each child had brought in to make art and count 100 cheerios for necklaces.

 painting to 100

100 day math manipulative activities

 100 day glasses

counting by 5's and 10's

 101 day art

 

counting cube activity

. 100 science taught us that 100 drops of water is actually only one teaspoon!

Morah Ruth

Shared photo book from IJP

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These are a few of KB's Favorite Things!

The making of our Sun-prints for the Art Auction. 

1. We gathered our Sunprint paper, acrylic sheet, a tray filled with water, and we chose our favorite toys.

2. We arranged our objects on a piece of Sunprint paper and left it out in the sun for about 10 minutes.

3. We rinsedyour Sunprint in water, watched the white turn into blue and the blue turn into white!

5. We put our Sunprint flat on an absorbent surface and allowed it to dry.

6. Our Sunprints on display at the Art Auction.

The Morning after the Art Auction, the google doodle was a Sunprint!

March 16 would have been Anna Atkins 216th birthday. Atkins used a version of "sun-printing" to create a book of photographed botanical specimens. The method she used is called the Cyanotype technique. It is an iron-based chemical method that created a white image appearing on a blue background. Exposure to sunlight is required for the process to work correctly, hence "sun-printing".

Morah Leah

Matzah Painting, Spring Nature Walk, and Pesach Jam Session - Kitah Alef

 Kitah Alef ventured out into the lovely spring air this week. We painted with brown paint and rollers to make "Matzot". Everyone enjoyed painting outside.

 Caleb and Annabelle made an extra painting outside. Annabelle: "I want pink!" Caleb: "I want red!"

 With the weather so nice we decided to go on a nature walk to see what we could find in the garden.

 The children found smooth pebbles. Sammy: "I put them in my pocket."

 We also found a rosemary bush. Morah Myriam: "Can you smell the rosemary?" Caleb: "I smell it!"

 Morah Myriam: "Should we take some back to the classroom?" Sammy: "Yes!"

There were yellow flowers. Caleb: "Yellow!"

 We brought some rosemary back to the classroom and everyone had a turn smelling it.

 Tehila, Evan, and Ezra watched us from inside the classroom. The children made faces at eachother through the window.

 On Wednesday we had a special treat. Evan's Daddy, Paul, came in to play his electric guitar for us! He even brought in his amplifier. The children danced and we sang "Where is Baby Moses", "Old McDonald", and "Let My People Go!"

The children each had a turn strumming the guitar. Morah Myriam (pointing to guitar) "What is this?" Ezra: "One, two, three..." Sammy: "It's red." Caleb (pointing to arm of guitar) "It's black!" Evan's Dad also sang us a song about everyone's shirts. "Tehila's shirt is green" (Tehila drums on her drum) "Sammy's t-shirt is wonder girl"  Morah Myriam: "What is your favorite song?" Caleb: "Ee Ay Oh!"

Cups in Kitah Gimmel

Cups and lids, simple as that!

We brought in cups and lids one day and put them out on our table. 

That’s it.  The yeladim were drawn to it as soon as they came into the classroom …it opened up some incredible discoveries…

It was a social time for a group of 3 to gather and have conversation and ‘coffee’ together (friendship and conversational skills building) …

It became a discovery time on seeing what fits in the cups (spacing and problem solving skills) …

It was an observation of modeling (“This is how my mommy likes it!”)…

It became a stacking time, first with lids then without (fine motor, spacing, and balancing)…

It became a counting and matching activity….

It became an experiment and observation of tilting and stacking, jiggling and leaning (fine motor, problem solving, balancing skills) ….

Learning occurs in the simplest things and in the yeladim's own hands!