Kitah Gimmel- Martin Luther King Jr. Day

In class, we asked what a hero was.  We got some very interesting answers (from "is it a food?"  to "a sandwich!") We explained that a hero is someone who is brave, honest, a good friend,and does the right thing - Does anyone know anyone like that? was then asked.  Hmmmm... this is how we started talking about Martin Luther King Jr.  He was a man who believed in friendship and being peaceful, of being nice to everyone no matter how tall you are, no matter what your hair color is, no matter if you wear glasses, no matter the color of your skin, no matter what your wearing.  He was a hero.  Do we know any other heros?  Abraham was a hero - he was chosen to be the first Jewish person and to father a nation - he was brave, honest, a good friend and did the right thing.  We read and learned alot about Abraham through out this year.  "What about Moses?" a child asked -YES he was a hero too!  He got it!

In the spirit of friendship, one of the activities we did was to make a special bag snack for another in the class.  The yeladim scooped many different snacks into specially made bags for their friends and gave them to each other.  "Did you like what I made for you?" "I remembered you liked lots of pretzels" were some of the lovely comments overheard.  The smiles on their faces was certainly the best parts for our Morahs!

Morah Risa and Morah Debby

Penguins in Kitah Gimmel

In Kitah Gimmel class, when we started talking about the new season of winter, the children started very excitedly  talking about penguins.  When asked, all the children wanted to learn about penguins!  We designed a web chart centered around penguins.  This method allows all the children to participate in helping to design their curriculum based around their interests and inquiries.

We brought in penguin books and real life penguin photos - this photo book was the busiest book in our library!  We discovered 17 different varieties of penguins - in helping the children to understand their sizes we constructed 2 life-size penguins - the smallest (Fairy penguin) and largest (Emperor penguin). They sought out the measuring tapes to measure each and themselves in comparison too. "Which is smaller?  Which is taller? Which is bigger, me or him?"

When we asked one of the children how tall she thought her father was, she answered: "Hmm... my daddy is tall like an Emperor Penguin!" This is one example of integrating and applying what they are learning in school to their home life.  Taking their interests, making it fun and being able to bring learning home is our goal!

Morah Risa and Morah Debby 

Outside Painting and Ice in Oil - Kitah Alef

In Kitah Alef this week we took colored ice cubes and dropped them in a glass jar filled with oil. The children watched in amazement as tiny droplets were released into the oil and the ice cubes slowly started to melt. Each ice cube was a different color and it was exciting to see the colors melting separately into the oil.

 Kitah Alef also spent time painting outside. The weather felt like spring and the children were excited to paint in a different space using blue and yellow paint. Kitah Bet soon joined in the fun.

Magnets in KDH

KDH loves the new magnatiles that we have in our classroom. Magnets themselves are always interesting. We keep magnet rods in our science center all the time. Yesterday while playing, Amitai showed us that his kipah clip was sticking to a magnatile. He discovered that his clip was magnetic.What a good day to have chosen magnets as the topic of Show and Tell.
As we often do when we introduce a topic or want to delve deeper, we start by asking the children what they know. Show and Tell was to be a hands on way of seeing and hearing about magnets from the children.
This is what we found out:
Magnets have a North and South. North and South attract each other. North and North repel. South and South repel. Thank you Eli for showing us this.

Magnets attract through paper. Thank you Cassidy for your magnet trick and Layla, Mia and Motty for bringing in magnetic books and games that also were based on this concept.
Magnets attract through plastic. Libi, we can't wait to have your game in our center for everyone to try.
Magnets are used in toys that we love to play with. Thanks Sholom, Josie for showing us your toys.
We draw and "write" with magnets. Thank you Ziva for sharing your magnadoodle with us.
A strong magnet will make the steel bolts attracted to it into temporary magnets. Thanks Perly and Bryna.
We love to have magnets on our refrigerators to decorate and hold up papers. Thank you Kemp, Adaya and Mia.
We also use magnets to learn our aleph bet. Thank you Amitai, Luba and Mina.
We are looking forward to a lot more learning and playing with magnets!

Flying School in KB

Thanks Dads, Grandpa's and older siblings for visiting Kitah Bet for Dads & Donuts.
Playing, eating donuts and making paper airplanes was a BLAST!

Sam: "My daddy came and played"

Shaya: "My daddy made airplanes with me"

Ari E. "my daddy also came"

Pearl: "my daddy didn't eat donuts"

Heina: "I make challah with my mommy"

Ari S. "daddy came, he flied"

Leiba: "My tutty came to school"

Yoni: "Jacob and Esther and mommy came"

Ruth: "Who's Jacob"

Yoni: "my friend"

Morah Leah

Our Dads by KDH

Morah Sara and I had so much fun today interviewing the children about their dads in preparation for Dads and Donuts. This is what we found out:

KDH dads like to exercise. 

Some of them go to work and just hang out with friends. More of them work on computers. One mom's work is much harder than Dad's. 

They range in age from 9 to 60 years old. 

Lots of them tell jokes and tickle the children.

How would the children like to be like their dads when they get older? The children are looking forward to going to work, having families, fixing things, grilling, being funny, smiling a lot, being a doctor, being a businessman, being a Totty, and one more: having no hair!!!

Our Dads sound wonderful. We are all looking forward to Donuts with Dads on Monday.

Winter Colors,Textures and Tastes in Kitah Bet

It's cold outside,
We are keeping warm and busy by playing in our new sensory table and with different winter colors textures and tastes.
 The water in the sensory table is cold.
Shaving cream is white like snow
Shaving cream and glue creates a mixture with a soft snowy texture
We painted snow men with this mixture
We made vegetable soup and tasted some. It was warm and delicious.

KG's First Shabbat January 2015

Kitah Gimel’s first Shabbat together in 2015!

We’re starting the year off right, welcoming a new friend, Miki, to our class!  The children have been warm, encouraging  and thoughtful with him and already he has jumped in to our activities with smiles and giggles.

We decided the best way for us to welcome Shabbat into our classroom this week is with fresh challah.  This is such a wonderful sensory Judaic experience - the children loved smelling it as much as kneading, rolling, twisting and squeezing.   Some comments overheard were: “It’s sticky but smells like challah”, “Look how far it stretches”,  “I’m rolling out snakes” and “It’s the squishest thing I ever squished!”  When asked if we should do this for next Shabbat, every Kitah Gimel friend screamed out “YES”  We  are going to try to make this part of our weekly Shabbat experience. 

We had a terrific week back - we look forward to so many more Shabbats together!

Good Shabbos!

Morah Risa and Morah Debby

Winter Time - Kitah Alef

 Kitah Alef is back! We are so excited to see how well everyone has readjusted and how many new words the children are saying. The room has transformed into a winter land. We have hung white feathers and snow balls near our reading area. We had lots of water play in our sensory table. Is it cold? "It's cold!"-Caleb.

 We made play dough on Wednesday. We added blue and red food coloring to make it more interesting. The children took turns adding the ingredients and stirring the contents of the bowl. Slowly the mixture started to set after we added a little more flour.

 We have been putting out baskets with manipulatives to develop fine motor skills. We are also working on keeping each manipulative in its respective basket.

 Due to the freezing temperatures we spent some time in the third building and Kitah Alef enjoyed running around freely and playing in the large open space.

 We made a winter collage this week on black paper with glue, shiny smooth paper, cotton balls and bubble paper. The children enjoyed the process of painting the glue on the paper.

 Kitah Alef loves to paint and we will have an easel set up each day during free play so they can paint to their hearts delight. We can't wait to see all the wonderful art that will be created.