Envisioning Animals

In Kitah Gimmel, we read Brown Bear Brown Bear, a classic book about animals and their colors. After reading the book, we were inspired to make our own book of animals. The children were asked what type of animal they would like to make, and what color it would be. Each child gave their own answer, ranging from cat to elephant.

To put an even more personal touch on our animal paintings, we used our hand prints as the basis for body and limbs of the animal. Fun ensued:

 

We cannot wait to turn our hand prints into animals, and make our book!

The Mitten

The Mitten, an Old Ukranian Tale. A beloved tale. We read two versions, one by Alvin
R. Tresselt and the second by Jan Brett. Tresselt’s begins with a boy going out on the
coldest day of winter gathering firewood for his grandmother. Brett’s protagonist, Nicki,
convinces his grandmother to knit him white mittens, even though she warns him, they
will be hard to find if he drops them in the snow.

The boys in both versions are out and drop a mitten. One by one, animals squeeze into
the mitten, until….

These books offer opportunities for sequencing, predicting and comparing and
contrasting with a Venn diagram tray activity. Brett, also illustrates her books, has drawn
clues on the side of the page for what will happen next.

We feel the grandmother’s love as she tells Nicki, “When you come home, first I will
look to see if you are safe and sound, but then I will look to see if you still have your
snow-white mittens.” Tresselt’s little boy does not worry about his lost mitten as he says,
“my grandmother will surely have my new mittens finished by now.”

The timeless love of grandmothers knitting mittens for their grandchildren spurred us
on. We had seen the yarn that Ms. Bonnie spun when she visited us. We took yarn and
knitting needles and we are knitting a mitten too…..

Morah Ruth

A Day Indoors, Lots to Explore

Just because we experienced some pretty extreme weather this afternoon, it didn't keep us from having a fun day at school.

We started the day with some toothbrush painting using all the different colors of the rainbow.

 

After Circle Time and Snack, we walked over to the main building to play in the back room. We had never used the large blocks before! We took turns letting our cars roll down the ramp we made.

 

We built towers and structures out of the plastic jungle toy...

 

And we were even able to play with the cardboard rocket ships made by Kitah Daled Hey. "Blastoff!" the children exclaimed as they went in and out of them.

 

 

The children even made up their own game, setting up the blocks this way and walking along like a train.

Rainy days don't get in our way in Kitah Alef Bet!

 

The Rainbow Connection

There are so many parts of the Noah story that can be deeply explored with youngsters! Animals, water and floating, and the rainbow are just a few.

This week we have embarked on a journey to learn more about the rainbow and colors. As teachers of young children, we strive to take concepts such as primary and secondary colors, and present them in tangible, concrete ways.

"Green!" Josie observed as blue and yellow ran together.

 The children were given spray bottles filled with red, yellow, and blue liquid watercolor. As they sprayed the paints onto coffee filters, they watched the colors run together to form new colors.

Laylah exercises her fine motor skills by squeezing the nozzle of the spray bottle.

Cassidy adds blue to her rainbow

Bryna chooses yellow to start with

Ziva watches the colors blend

Perly squeezes the spray bottle

Later in the day, we learned a song about the rainbow. It is sung to the tune of London Bridge:

Red, orange, yellow, green,
Shiny blue, purple too,
All the colors that we know
Hashem put in the rainbow!

Friendship and Fun

Ana joined our class today. Ana and some of the children remember each other from Ana's time in Kitah Gimel last year. We were eager to familiarize Ana with the children and the classroom routine. We asked the children to introduce themselves and tell Ana what they enjoyed at school and thought she might enjoy. This is what they told Ana:

Einav: Lego

Benjamin: running outside

Menny: lego and rocket ships and playing games

Isaac: puzzles

AmaraLia: drawing

Ari: painting

Kira: dolls and clay

Theo: running around on the playground and playing in the ship

Esther: playing outside with friends and writing with chalk

Nessia: playing in rocket ships, on swings, running outside and painting

Ana  smiled and nodded as each child talked to her. She loved their suggestions. And so did we, the teachers. We thought we might tell the children what we enjoyed. But then instead, they said they wanted to tell us. Nessia piped up, " You like teaching us how to paint and learn." Theo said, "I know, you like to teach people."

It's true we love to learn and teach and to paint. But more than that, we are so pleased with how each child welcomed Ana to our class. Friendship and kindness at its best...

Painting Bark, Exploring Its Texture

Kitah Gimmel has been learning about the different parts of the tree, the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves, and the important jobs that each does for the tree. For example, the trunk protects the tree, the roots slurp up rain from the ground, and the leaves allow the tree to breath.

On Tuesday, we gathered around the two large trees in the yard, and talked about them.

Morah Goldie shows the roots of an indoor plant that outgrew its container

We understand facts about our world through direct experience within it, so what better way to learn about trees than to spend some quality time with our trees?

An art activity allowed us to get a deeper understanding of the properties of bark-- we felt it and observed its rough texture. We then got a sense of its visual texture by making prints of this bumpy surface. 

The first step of making any print, is using paint to cover a surface. We got to work adding patches of (washable) paint to our trees. 

 

Next, we took sheets of thin manila paper, and pressed them over the areas of painted tree, being careful to flatten our hands, and smooth the paper over all of the lumps and bumps of bark. Some were surprised that the bark even poked little holes in their paper! 

When we peeled away the paper, we saw the marks that were made by the tough ridges in the bark.
By doing this art activity, we got an even deeper knowledge of the strength and importance of a tree's bark. These types of activities allow us to get to know nature in new and meaningful ways!

Doughnuts with Dads

What do you get when you give Dads wardrobe boxes, paper cutters, tape, paint, tape measures, and markers?  A fleet of spaceships!  One spaceship is a joint Israel-USA venture. One spaceship can be used upright or on its side. The third spaceship has four rockets on the back! What fun! Thanks, Dads. 

Morah Ruth

Birds of a Feather

Tiny IJP Fan

The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and Tu B'Shevat is well on its way. Tu B'Shevat is known as the new year or birthday of the trees, but what can you do for a tree to show your appreciation? You certainly can't bake it a cake or give it a toy like you would on a friend's birthday.

In Kitah Alef Bet, we wondered aloud, "What do trees like?"

We know that trees like water and sunshine, and they like to be around other living things like squirrels and birds. With this idea in mind, today during Dad's and Donuts morning we got to work making bird feeders to hang in our trees.

The children worked at stringing cheerios and bread onto yarn. Then we took one and hung it up outside. This is what it looks like hanging from a tree in our yard:

one of our bird feeders

We can't wait to check them on Wednesday and see if the animals have been enjoying our treats!

Another bird feeder at IJP

The Wall Street Journal

KDH listened intently today as Morah Ruth read an article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.
WSJ in preschool?!!
Yes! KDH is busy gathering information about outer space in preparation for our trip to the moon.Ari brought in a book about Mars and Benjamin brought a book about the first flight to the moon.
Menny showed us space ship for his Show and Tell.Mendel brought in a painter’s coverall that can be used as space suit.Theo told us that Mars is called the red planet.

Yesterday’s WSJ reported: The Mars rover, named Curiosity, that landed there on August 5th and has traveled around Mars, taking pictures, is now ready to start drilling and collecting samples “What are samples?” asked Mendel. Esther explained.“My brother went to the ice cream store and wanted to taste the ice cream.He got samples.”We will follow Curiosity’s progress.

We are all excited for Dads with Donuts, when we will build our spaceship!

Morah Ruth

Get Cozy With a Book on a Rainy Day

Today during small group time, we read the Caldecott medal-winning picture book, The Lion & the Mouse.

What's special about this book is that there are hardly any words. We must use our eyes and look at the pictures very well to understand what is happening.

From a teaching perspective, this book is wonderful for making predictions and inferences, as there are many opportunities to ask the children what they think is going on, and what they think will happen next.

If you are not familiar with the story, you can read a synopsis of it here. Essentially, it is a story of friendship and helping one another.

At the end of the story, I asked the children what their favorite part was. Here are some of their responses:

Ezra: When the mouse helped the lion.

Talia: When the lion was trapped and the mouse helped him.

Sholom: The lion let the mouse go.

Iyar: I liked when the mouse helped him get out.

Motty: The people had a jeep. There was a tire on the back. My mommy has the same thing in her car.

Max: The part with the net.

Yael: The mouse helped the lion get out of the net.

Vivian: I liked it when the mouse chopped down the net.

Asher: The mouse helping the lion.

Estelle: It was a story of a lot of animals.

Eden: All the lions.

Jonah: When the lion got trapped in the net.

Dovy: I liked the baby mouse.

Nina: I liked when the mouse chewed the net.

Spinning Wool

Many of our forefathers were shepherds so the topic of sheep and cattle comes up time and again.
Keeping warm in winter, we wear wool clothing….

KDH had a special guest yesterday. Ms. Bonnie brought her spinning wheel and drop spindle and
demonstrated to the class how she spins wool. We looked at pictures of sheep before and after
shearing. Ms. Bonnie explained that sheep get haircuts just like we do. Then the wool is washed and combed. This wool is then called rovings. These rovings are spun into yarn and are wound around a bobbin. This yarn is used to knit, crochet, weave or make felt. Ms. Bonnie told us that she also spins cotton, which comes from the cotton plant.

KDH noticed that the spinning wheel had a few wheels and pulleys. Ari remarked that the well he made at school was also a pulley!

Spinning will come up again soon when we discuss the building of the tabernacle/mishkan.

Thank you to Nessia’s mom, Alisa, for arranging this for our class.

Morah Ruth

Overheard at the Sensory Bin

The dialogue that occurs among the children when they are deeply immersed in play in fascinating. It is my opinion that what the children say while they are in the "imagination zone" is just as likely to be based in topics that they are dealing with in their everyday lives (mommy, daddy, and family, current themes of the classroom), as they are to be totally random, almost like the random firing of synapses in the brain that occur as one's dreaming.

While we don't need to dissect the precise origin of the verbal exchanges that occur during play, we can conclude that there is some rich thinking and concentration going on during what is often perceived as trivial play time.

 Here are some of the quotes from around the sensory bin today:

 

Vivian: "This is the grandma and the grandpa. Here's mommy and sister. This is the dad. We sleep right now."

Motty: "I'm the baby!"

Jonah: "We're going to the pet store to get some pets."

Felix: (chipping at the ice with the polar bear) "Uh oh, slide down here."

Vivian: "I'll help you. I'll carry you on me. Ready? Let's go! 

              I found an igloo for us so we can live inside."

Luba: "Wake up! (rooster noise) Cock-a-doodle-doo!"