A Meaningful Shabbat in Kitah Bet

In preparation for our school-wide Shabbat party we've been discussing all of the elements of Shabbat! We like to get an idea of what the children know about Shabbat so we know where their interest lie and what we can be tevhing more of. Let me tell you this, our class loves to eat on Shabbat more over, they mentioned that they love cake on Shabbat! Why cake? Because Shabbat is special, of course! 

We asked, "When does Shabbat start?" 

They responded, "When it gets dark!"

So we explored light vs. dark.  Look at our lights, candles and mirrors of reflection.

What do we do on Shabbat? 

"We eat cake and challah!"

"We play!"

Challah baking is an all time favorite, sensational activity where we get to roll, squish, squeeze, and push the dough around while socializing with friends?! 

What do we put on our Shabbat table?

"Food! Challah! Candles! Kiddush cups! Chicken!"

See our loose parts table! What does it look like sideways?

We made our own candle holders and we think they're pretty neat!

We even have our own Shabbat Party with our very own Ima and Aba!

Extended Day Delights

Every Friday our school gets delivered boxes and boxes of pizza. Every Friday those pizza boxes get sent to recycling and our wonderful garbage removal team kindly take them to the recycling facility.  Last Friday Morah Stephanie was able to save a few in hopes that the children would find something creative to do with them.  When we looked at them this Monday we suggested many different options for the boxes.  Shaya insisted that we make a ramp.  So, with a little bit of tape and a lot of imagination we had the perfect ingredients for a marble-racing ramp.  We built a straight shoot at first then added little obstacles for the balls to go around.  Once we figured out that the obstacles were only slowing down the balls, we went back to our high speed racing and carried the activity on to Tuesday.  We love it when we find activities that have the children asking for more. 

While some were racing, others were building onto our cardboard house, twisting pipe cleaners together to make bracelets, and creating magic flower gardens out of random, flower-like toys. Last week Henia made a computer for our cardboard house, and then it went missing.  This week something great happened; we found it!  Here you can see Sammy Typing away busily

Our little builders once again created another unique structure equipped with an array of features.  Did you know that there's a spaceship out there that has an obstacle course, a house with beds, ramps, bridges, and a secret room? Yep, our students imagined all of that up themselves. 

While some like to build giant structures, others may feel more inclined to color, cut, tear, and glue. So, we turned our reading nook into an art station because sometimes it's fun to do art somewhere other than the table, as long as everyone is safe and mindful of the supplies we are using.  

Togetherness and fun go hand in hand during our extended hours. The concept of teamwork is a great social skill and will be carried with our young minds throughout their lives.  We practiced working together and cheering on our teammates using balloons, hoops, bean bags and some very simple instructions.  We were pleasantly surprised how well the children remembered the sequence of the races so well.  For example, during one race, we picked up bean bags, set each one in its own hoop, then did five jumping jacks, retrieved our bean bags then finished on our starting dot.  They all did a great job remembering all of those steps; very few needed the Morahs to remind them of the steps or walk them through.

Love is in the Air ~ Kitah Alef

It all started with a little stone that had the word 'love' written on it. This inspired us. We got to work and created our very own version KA style. Morah Ruth from Kitah Daled Hey gave us a large big piece of poster board to use. We still had sticks in our classroom collected from the playground and  we got to work!

Morah Myriam carefully glued the sticks onto the poster board as the children watched. We made letters with our sticks. We sounded out each letter and ran our fingers over the shape. We even found a special heart shaped type of acorn to make our "o"

Finally it was done! Now we were ready to paint...

Everyone put on a smock and we picked out green, pink and silver paint.

      Zoey wanted to have the green paint. Zoey: "I want green... this is for Mommy and Daddy!"

              Everyone worked hard to fill in the space around our word with pinks, greens, and shiny                                                                                silver paint.

                  We wanted to add a little texture so we added some bird seed to our painting.
                                                Avraham  Chaim: "Bird seed, bird seed!!"

            Shane sprinkled the bird seed into the pink paint very carefully. Shane: "Look, bird seed!"

              The children would leave the table and take off their smocks only to return again and again to continue the process. Everyone wanted a part in sprinkling the bird seed.

                       Sylvia took her time until she was sure of the color she wanted to use.

                 

             Rafi and Benji continued sprinkling bird seed to make the painting even more

                                                                interesting and beautiful.

         Yisroel had been busy reading books all morning in the library, but finally he came to put               some finishing touches on our work of art. Love is in the air!

Morah Myriam Morah Kim