The Blog Post With No Pictures

      (Recently, both Ari E's mom and Yoni's mom shared a book with us, The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak.  That book, and their reading of it, has inspired me to write this Blog Post With No Pictures.)

     We love sitting in the Big Library, enjoying the company of our Mystery Readers.  We listen intently as our guests read a picture book.  The parents, or grandparents, are careful to hold the book so all of us can enjoy the illustrations. 

     However, this was not the case with The Book With No Pictures.  The readers didn't need to turn the book this way and that; it didn't matter.  There was nothing but the text to look at.

     As a child, would you have enjoyed listening to a story, with no pictures to engage you?  The Kitah Gimmel children did.  They heard the story twice, from two different parents, on two different occasions and they paid attention both times.

     As an adult, would you enjoy reading a blog post with no pics of your children?  If so, continue on . . .

     A few weeks ago, we began sharing the story of Yosef and his coat of many colors.  We had picture books to aid in the telling of the story, a home-made paper bag puppet and some magnetized story-board pieces.

     We continued the story at lunch.  I took no photos of the children as we continued on with the story.  Can you imagine this picture:  each and every child was fully engaged in the telling of the story.  Each one leaned forward, stopped chewing on their sandwiches, and stared at the Morah.

     Incredible!  A group of three-and four-year-olds engrossed in a Parsha story.  "What happens next?" the children asked. The group was curious to hear more.  Their questions were thought-provoking, as well.  Why did Yosef's brothers behave this way?  Why were they jealous?  Could the brothers and Yosef be friends again?

     So , dear parents, I wanted to share this info with you.  Your children love all kinds of stories.   Of course, you already knew this.  You will not see a photo today of your children enjoying our recent retelling of the Parsha.  However,  you should be able to imagine it, much like your children imagined "pictures" when listening to The Book With No Pictures.

Morah Susan

Chanukah boxes for Pre-KA

Toddlers love to pull baby wipes out of their container.
Toddlers are all sorts of curious.
Enter, Chanukah candles in a box!

We re purposed wipes tubs, decorated them with strips of tissue paper and then stuck chanukah stickers on. Then we put 8 felt candles in the tub and showed the children how to pull them out and push them in.

I hope they enjoyed playing with their Chanukah toy at home too.

Morah Leah

Brown & Bears in KB

From Brown play dough to brown bears and brown sand, the kids were much excited to learn about the different shades and items that comes in that color.
They learnt about the brown bear that hibernates in the winter, and then the brown fox that changes to white and the colorful leaves that turn brown before the first snow ..

KDH Makes Chanukah Party Decorations

KDH was chosen to set up and decorate the big room for the IJP Chanukah party. We brainstormed about how to decorate. Should we should paint fancy tablecloths? How about centerpieces? We decided that would not really show up with all the things that needed to be on the tables. Then we came up with an idea. Why not paint candles and hang them up. That would be festive. 

Reyn's mom, Justine, came in and drew the candles for us on rolls of paper. We chose bright paint colors and went to work. Everyone worked together to paint the candles. We carried them up the hill and lay them out to dry. The next morning Justine came back and we continued. The children cut out the candles and we hung them up.

 Wow! How beautiful!!

Justine suggested that we save the paper plates that we used to put the paint on when we painted. That was a great idea. Look at this bulletin board that we now have.

Thanks Justine!!

Morah Ruth 

Morah Sara

Chanukah Fun During Extended Day

Henia, Pearl, Mina, Ruthie, and Rami singing "Dreidel" during creative play outside on the ship.

                   Chanukah has been an exciting time for everyone, here at IJP. We've had fun playing dreidel, eating latkes, baking cookies, reading beautiful Chanukah stories, and much more over the past week. 

                    Though the Holiday of Chanukah may have come to an end this past Monday, the spirit of the holiday has not left our hearts. 

                    During creative play outside on the ship, the kids decided to make a "Chanukah Party". Some people brought "latkes" to the party, others "gelt", "water", "donuts", and whatever else their lively imaginations could come up with, using the leaves, acorns, and sticks around us as inspiration.

                    We had a lot of fun, saying our favorite parts of Chanukah, and singing our favorite songs. 

                    Chanukah is a beautiful time of year, celebrating how Hashem is constantly taking care of us, and even during our hardest moments, in the darkest of winter, there is light to be found.

                    Lucky for us, we have our wonderful IJP students to bring light to our lives, with their beautiful shining faces and excitement for life, whether on Chanukah or any other day of the week. 

Color and Light Exploration with Kitah Alef

We brought the light table into Kitah Alef. We covered the window with a dark blue paper to create more darkness, so that the light would stand out.  It took a little while for the children to notice it was there, all the way in the back of the room. Once Eliza discovered it, everyone crowded around. Eliza picked up a green shiny wooden block. Morah Myriam: "What color is that Eliza?" Eliza: "Green."

 The children moved the magna tiles around on the light table. Shane: "Look!" (picking up a block from the light table) Shane: "Look at this light, all these colors!"

Rafi stacked the blocks one on top of the other and made a tower.  There were circles, triangles and squares to explore.

 Shane and Benji held the blocks up to their eyes to peer through the colored glass. Morah Myriam "What color is that Shane?" Shane: "Blue.... Eli is hiding" (Eli (Yisroel) was hiding behind the light table.) Morah Myriam: "There he is!"

 Zoey came along and picked up a wooden see through block with all kinds of shapes inside it. She held it above her head and peered through it. Having the light table in our room is such a treat. We are continuing to learn our colors and we are exploring shapes at the same time.

Loving the Chanukah Experience

     Chanukah is a celebration of light over darkness.  We ventured out of our room, into the IJP Library, to get a good look at the contrast of light and dark.  Some of us prepared paper dreidels in the classroom, carefully poking holes in them, and then we placed them on the light-table. We shut the library lights. Yoni, Hannah and Ruthie investigate the dreidels at the light-table. (Below, Ari S has a turn at the light-table.)

     A few of the children were intrigued by the shadows.  We hid Chanukah candles under the paper dreidel.  We were still able to count them.  Can you?

      On Friday, we baked "Chanukah Challah."  Never heard of this tradition?  Neither did we.  Morah Susan had the pretty blue cupcake papers at home and she brought them in.  The school had colorful sprinkles--so festive.  Perfect for Shabbat Chanukah.  Pearl, Noa, Ari E and Rami push their challah dough into the cupcake papers.

Our "Chanukah Challah" waiting to go in the oven.  Delish!

     We baked Chanukah cookies, too.  Real cookies, of course.  Here, Henia and Pearl have decided to prepare Chanukah-shaped Play-Doh cookies.  Later, they bring them to the housekeeping area, offering them to all their friends. We ate latkes in class, and sufganiot, too.  Lots of yummy food fried in oil.  We spoke again about the miracle of the olive oil and Chanukah. 

     The girls had "gifted" us with dreidels from Israel.  We were excited to see the letter "pey" on these Israeli dreidels.  Our "American" dreidels have a "shin" on them, representing the words: a great miracle happened there.  The Israeli dreidels have a letter "pey" instead, meaning that a great miracle happened here, in Israel.

     Together, we experience the joy of being Jewish.   We celebrate the holiday by lighting the Chanukah candles, singing the brachot, and dancing.

     Finally, it's time for some serious fun, singing and food.  We love getting together with all our IJP friends and family.  We sing and chat.  We decorate Chanukah cookies and then we nosh on our cookies, applesauce and latkes. Shlomit, Yoni, Mortimer and Reed participate respectfully at the table and enjoy the party.

     (Below, Ruthie and Hannah, Shaya and Ari S, Shlomit and friends, Noa and Leiba--celebrating Chanukah!)

 Enjoy!

Morah Susan and Morah Sterny

                                             
Some Reflections on our family trip to Israel---

                                                                  B"H

                                                Of Caves and Graves

We just came back from a most flawless trip to Israel.  There is nothing in the world like Eretz Yisrael- it felt safe, happy, alive, spiritual, and really like the place we all belong---one day soon!

 It does not make me happy to report that there was a stabbing and car ramming terrorist attack in the exact spot we had spent idling in traffic- but had we been there three hours later our trip would not have been so excellent. A good trip anywhere takes a lot of organization, as my father in law drilled into the heads of his children; prior proper planning prevents poor performance. So my husband Rabbi Schusterman gets 99.9% of the credit for keeping to what the family calls the 6 p's, while I was the dutiful partner looking over emails, making some suggestions, and head-nodding-in-agreement when my husband ran the plans by me- I arranged our shabbat lunch with an old friend, as well. 

Besides running so smoothly (I am being extremely generous here, we were delayed in ATL for 4 hours due to a death on our incoming plane, missed our connection in France, and arrived many hours later in Israel with 6 exhausted starving children--- I think getting there and back intact is my litmus test for flawless), and being away together as a family, there is something else that struck me during our trip.  Here it is, we had fun, it was magical and memorable for a lifetime,   but there was an unusual quality to this fun; we were not on a cruise or in an amusement park or anywhere near anything remotely Disneyesque--- I believe our families enjoyment stems from the principle that I so strongly believe in with all things educational and experiential; it was meaningful, and it was open-ended with no defined way to "play". 

Our trip was planned around visiting the grave-sites of the holy men and women buried all over the country- (the idea being that for centuries Jewish people have been going to these places and praying, it is a part of our Jewish tradition and considered to be a great Mitzvah),visiting family, and many caves/archaeological sites/tunnels/war ruins.  We did have a sunset Jeep ride through the Golan heights, stopping to overlook the Hulah Valley and tours of both a winery and chocolate factory (say what? that sounds fun! It was!) So what was so magical and enjoyable for 8 children ranging in ages 4-19 visiting caves and graves?

Firstly of course, it was family time, together with nothing but ourselves to keep us entertained on long rides throughout the holy land (and traffic).  We spent many hours in our little van, singing, talking, listening to our tour guide, arguing, even some whining and fighting.  But for the 12 days in Israel, there was no prescribed way to enjoy ourselves. I watched as for some children it was climbing the low wall, alone, on the walkway up Amuka, grave of the saintly Reb Yonatan Ben Uziel.  For some of the children, finding a mother and 3 baby kittens in the mausoleum  of Rachel, wife of Akiba,  was the day’s highlight right there.  The children had an ongoing count of all cats spotted the entire trip. Some counted the times they saw a license plate that had the number 8 (don't ask me why).  At the winery, when the little ones spotted a ramp, they left the group and ran circles up and down the ramp- laughing and squealing. Their joy palpable, the grape juice "tasting" at the end, only fueled the natural high with an added sugar high. Throughout our trip they skipped stones, walked on walls, spied fresh fruit trees, picked out exotic looking prayer books in sometimes dank underground tombs,  crossed busy streets, climbed big boulders through rubble, even descended deep into tunnels and caves- each and every one of our kids, as if this was the most exciting thing in the world.  In the museums, if it got “boring” for some of the younger ones, they scrambled through places they didn’t belong or just grabbed my hand happy to have Mommy or Daddy calm and peaceful.

There is something magical that happens when you take your children to a place that is meaningful to you, be it a hike, your hometown, or alma-mater – even the grave site of a loved one, and let them experience it as you do, in a natural way. There doesn’t have to be an “activity” associated with each sight and you don’t have to worry about having fun- the children make their own fun and that is the enjoyment that creates a permanent, meaningful and happy place inside of them.  I watched this happen and I look forward to hearing about their memories for many healthy years to come.  (Oh! And lots of Kosher Ice cream and snacks! )

Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel - Chanukah Art with Kitah Alef

 The children in Kitah Alef decorated dreidels with glue, pom poms, and ribbons. We worked hard squeezing out the glue onto the cut out dreidel. Morah Leah: "What are you doing Rafi?" Rafi: "I'm doing it myself!"

 Morah Leah: "What a pretty dreidel you made!" Zoey starts singing the dreidel song: "Oh dreidel dreidel dreidel, I made you out of clay...."

 Rafi made two dreidels. He enjoyed the process of squeezing out a lot of glue onto the dreidel. The children seemed to be more interested in the glue, rather than gluing the pom poms or ribbons onto the dreidel.

 Logan worked diligently to place each pom pom in its place. He had some trouble squeezing the glue out of the bottle and needed a little help with that.

 Yisroel placed the ribbons on the dreidel and then took them back off afterwards. Yisroel: "I want to put pom poms!"

 After a while we added pink and red pom poms to our decorations. Morah Myriam counted them out one by one.

 After our art activity we joined Morah Leah for the dreidel song as we spun around and around.