Mother's Day Celebrated

It was a few weeks ago, but not forgotten, what a joy we had at our Mothers Day Celebration in our classroom. 

First the moms and special guest arrived into our classroom. They recieved their gifts that we made for them, sharing our love of books and reading; a book mark! 

Then we sat at the table to makeflower arrangements to take home for our Shabbat table.  We also had some time to play with  tray activities with our moms.

We had a fun time playing our group game, "guess which quote your child commented about you". 

We went outside to play on the ship waiting for the rest of the school to come out .We sang our shabbat songs with the entire school onstage and ate yummy snacks that the children prepared.

We had a great day celebrating our moms.... graduation Day is next...Stay Tuned!!!   

Butterflies for Kitah Gimmel

Mazal Tov its 4 new butterflies born in Kitah Gimmel !!!

On Monday morning the children were so happy to see the butterflies that emerged from their chrysalis. 

 After snack we went outside to let the butterflies fly!

Some sweet comments flew around us like a butterfly:

They are going to look for their mommy,

They are going to have a play-date on a tree

They are going to look for nectar

They are exercising their wings

They are flying to the sun 

We will miss them!

Decorating for Shavuot

The students of extended day have been given the honor of creating props for our end of the year performance and the upcoming holiday, Shavuot. First, we built mini models of Har Sinai then we upscaled it to one giant mountain. Because the Isrealites found the mountain in full bloom, we decided to decorate the mountains with beautiful flowers of our own.  Painting the flowers was fun, but we really had a blast with the spray bottles outside. We hope you like our creation! 

Extended Day Buildings and Bugs!

During extended day we like to get creative, build structures, look for bugs (or create them).  All the while we talk about working together, taking turns, being kind to our friends, and are working toward an end of the year party.

Boxes can sometimes be more fun than the actual toys or items that come in them.  We explored this theory by breaking the boxes down and building our own little city.  With tape and a little teamwork we built our own little city.

Then we went outside to look for caterpillars.  They we scarce, so we made our own.  First we gathered twigs for our caterpillars to crawl on. Then we found some heavy duty wood glue, aligned some pom-poms, topped them off with some googly eyes and voila, we have caterpillars! 

Circles in Kitah Alef

KA explored circles this week. We pointed out all of the circles in the classroom and even spotted some outside! The kids loved talking about the shape and discovering all the types of circles. Drums are circles, we can paint with circles, circles are in the sand box... The best circle is made with a bubble!!!

It's a Mitzvah in KG

During Circle time we discussed the upcoming special day of Lag Baomer, the 33rd day during the counting of the Omer.  We heard about Rabbi Akiva, who teaches us that it is NEVER too late to study Torah or any new subject, and anyone who puts their mind to something can get it done.  This was illustrated with the story of the water creating a hole in the rock. Drip drop drip drop, each day...

 Lag Baomer is the day when Rabbi Akiva's students stopped being unkind to each other, they were busy learning Torah the whole day that they forgot to pay attention to each other and take care of their friends. They were all super smart and academic, but forgot about the people around them.  This is a big lesson for us to learn from. 

We read the book    it's a...It's a...It's a Mitzvah

                                       Written by Liz Suneby Diane Heiman

Then The children were asked which Mitzvah they love to do:

Libi: Give Tzedakah.

Josie: Giving to my friends.

Amitai: Make sure to share.

Mia: Play with Anika.

Mina: To feed my baby Liba.

Kemp: Give things to someone.

Ziva: Help my sister to get drink.

Cassidy: Hug my mom.

Eli: Help Beker when he is in danger.

Perly: Share my toys with everyone and share my food with Bryna at home.

Adaya: Love people.

Laylah: Kiss my Mommy.

Bryna: Help my mommy with laundry  

 

Eggsperiments in KDH

KDH has been exploring birds. What makes a bird a bird? Where do birds live? Do all birds fly? Can you name birds from A to Z?

Last week Dovi came up with another question.  How do birds sit on their eggs and they don't break! 

We did two experiments to answer the question. We took three raw eggs and stood them up in modeling clay. Then we stacked books on top of them!

 Do you know how many we stacked!! 27 Books, all about the topics were are exploring, birds, ladybugs, poetry, flowers.

Next we took three half egg shells and stacked books on them. They were also strong enough to hold up many of the books.

Eggs really are strong! What an amazing discovery!

Morah Ruth

Exploring spring, colors, shapes and more!

Spend one day in Kitah Alef and you'll quickly learn that we like to stay busy, get very messy and rarely wear shoes.  Altogether, we have a great time exploring colors, shapes, paints, textures and all of the fun art activities that Spring has to offer. I just love the smiling faces, can-do attitudes, and strong personalities! The days are fun and always new and exciting.  As a new teacher IJP I'm learning so much from the children and my fellow teachers. Thanks for having me!

~Stephanie~

We love to make art for our classroom! Dots are fun and colorful!

"Look, purple!"

"I did that!"

We LOVE bubbles!

Stuffing the plastic bags was almost as fun as flying them around the classroom...

KA exploring creatures

                                                                                                                   B'h
Last week Morah Stephanie found a caterpillar outside. She brought it intto the classroom for the children to see. They were so amazed by it, some were even brave enough to hold it!  This is a big step for some of our friends who are sometimes scared of the tiniest of ants :).
Morah Mushky

Ruth says "Caterpiller!"