Documenting our Documentation

We often take photos of the children in action.  Why do we do this?

(Above, Annabel paints 15 Condo Skyscraper.)

    

Here are a few of our reasons . . .(Parents and friends, you may think of even more!)

• When the children look back over their photos, they use expressive language to retell the action, thereby increasing their language skills,
• By reviewing past activities together, we notice our physical and social/emotional growth,
• By sharing our experiences with our friends, we reinforce positive relationships with our peers. We form a more cohesive group when we have shared experiences.  

     We have certainly taken many, many photos of our Construction unit.  We are now involved with including some of our photos in a Big Book.  The Book itself is a form of documentation--and, along with our blogs, it tells the story of our Construction journey. 

     We are including additional photos here, to further document and share our investigation.  

Above and below:  Shane, Ezra and Shayan add their "apartments" to 15 Condo Skyscraper.

 

 (Above) Our Big Book of Building contains documentation beginning in January and ending in May.  The Morahs began jotting down the children's dialogue.  When we noticed the interest in building, we went outside to investigate an actual construction site.  This continued for a few months.

  When we flipped over our finished  pages of our Big Book, we discovered that there was not a single page left to write on!  At that point, all of us had chosen our own "apartments" in the condo.  Perhaps we were "finished" with this project?

  But, there was one more concept we wanted to document:  asking questions.  Curiosity is important for many reasons.  "Learning to learn" means we are ready to absorb information, integrate the new information with our previous knowledge, and ask questions.  All of this guides us to form our opinions, and to create strategies for the next step.  What were our questions?

      Here are some questions about the house:  Avraham Chaim:  Is there a carport?
                                                                          Dalia:  Where are the bathrooms?
                                                                          Shane:  Is it a warehouse?
                                                                          Rafi:  Is there a cement floor?
                                                                          Harper:  Are there laser lights in the house?

(Below, the cover of our Big Book. Above, the builder of "our" house at 625 Cooledge, Jarrett Macintosh.)

Here are the answers, directly from the builder:

There's no carport, but there is a 2-door garage,

There are bathrooms throughout the house--one is on the roof!  (The builder called it a "powder room.")

This new construction is a home, not a warehouse.

There will be wooden floors, except for the garage, which will have cement floors.

The lighting is LED, to conserve energy.

So, now we know the answers to our questions!

(Below, Annabel and Dalia stage a tea party at the Condo.)

And, what about our trays?  How do they reflect our interests in building?

  (Below, Asher and Shane build together.)

Below: Eliza experiences construction with clay and golf tees. 

 Below:  a group building activity with loose parts.

 Harper drives a construction truck through the dirt.

 Below:  Rafi, Ezra, Avraham Chaim and Asher involved with the building trays.

 Below:  a close-up of one of our trays.  Yes, these are real tools--we can do it!

Below:  wait, does this pic belong in a cooking blog or a building blog?  What's it doing here?  Oh, Eli is leading us as we make edible bricks a/k/a brownies--super delish!  

Come join us at our Siyum tomorrow, Wednesday, to see our Construction Gallery and enjoy our brownies!  

The Kitah Gimmel Morahs

Tzedakah Island

Tzedakah Island emerged from the children's combined interests in building and boxes.

Noticing the children's interest in boxes,Morah Yachovah began offering the children more boxes and recycled materials. We set out an experience with those materials along with tape, glue, and scissors.

                           

                             

                           
The children began creating houses and buildings. There were so many buildings and limited storage spacer all these creations. We discussed this problem with the children and the solution we came up with was to stack them. The buildings needed to be secured, so low-temperature glue guns were introduced.The children voted on a name for the box city and Tzedakah Island was the winner.

                                                                                             

Next the children painted the buildings and drew doors and windows for the Morahs to cut out. Then Morah Devorah worked with the children to write and make signs for the various businesses, attraction, and locations on Tzedakah Island.

Following this, the children created the residents of Tzedakah Island out of clay and their vehicles out of boxes and lids.

Next, children made maps for Tzedakah Island by drawing roads and gluing blue cellophane for water.The class made a book. Each child made a page. The children noticed a common theme among all of their stories. Each one ended positively, so they chose the title,“Tzedakah Island, Presenting of Good.”  

Some children made still-life paintings of the buildings. Finally, we added lights throughout the buildings.

We look forward to seeing all of you on Siyyum Night!

-Morah Jessica and the Extended Day Staff

KDH Cookies for Israel

Remember Hurricane Harvey? All the way back at the beginning of this school year, KDH jumped right in to help the Houston victims. We baked challot, sold them, and sent the money with Morah Sara's husband to Houston.

Yesterday KDH was busy with chesed again. This time the children got together and planned how to participate in cookies for Israel. What is cookies for israel? An over 3,000 sq.ft. flag to be made with 100,000 cookies will be put together in Atlanta on June 3rd. 

The entire venture has been underwritten and now the 100,000 cookies need to be sponsored. This will raise $1,000,000 and set a Guinness world record.

(https://www.duvys.com/match/cookiesforisrael). 

The money will be given to three charities in Israel.

 How could KDH get money to join this fundraiser?? We concluded that 

cookies for cookies 

would be fantastic! We would bake cookies and sell them. The money that we earn would be used to sponsor cookies. 

The children came to the kitchen and gathered together all the supplies: flour, sugar, eggs, oil, baking soda, chocolate chips, vanilla and cookie sheets. Next, it was working together around the table, measuring, cracking eggs and mixing. Finally the cookies were ready for the oven. When they had baked we waited for them to cool and packed them up in cellophane bags tied with a blue ribbon.

Becker made the first sale. Miss Donna bought five cookies from him! Annika was so excited that she used her ingenuity to print some money.

The cookies are all packed up waiting for customers. We are proud of the KDH children who are so kind. Using their fantastic baking skills they began a year and ended it caring for others.

Morah Ruth 

Morah Sara

Parshat Bamidbar in KDH

Yannai brought his parents back in again to teach us Parsha. We learned that Parshat Bamidbar, the first parsha in the book of Bamidbar relates how the Jews lived and traveled in the desert. The mishkan was in the middle of the encampment and around it on all four sides - North, South, East and West were the Jewish people, everyone with his/her Shevet/tribe. Around the mishkan were the Levite/Leviim. They carried the Mishkan and its vessels. Moshe was also instructed in how to take a census.

 Yannai's parents discussed with the children N, S, E, and W. They brought in magnets and explained how a compass's magnet is aligned with the earth. Everyone looked at a compass and saw it pointing northward.  This reminded us all of how Avraham had doors on four sides, so guests could come from all directions. 

The children were given an illustration to paint or color and then a magnet to glue on to help us remember what we learned.

Thank you Yannai, Yaarit and Shlomi!!

Morah Ruth

Morah Sara