Kitah Alef's Ladybugs

Ladybugs!

Springtime announces the arrival of new things blossoming all around us. We welcomed the arrival of our visiting ladybugs, who will join our class for a few weeks while we watch them grow. First we greeted our baby ladybugs in the tube they came in, observing their appearances and living space.

Then the children watched as Morah Rena carefully tipped the tube into the ladybugs' new home. 

By looking closely we can see them crawling all around. We wondered what ladybugs eat. Do they eat cheerios? Do they like pizza? No! It turns out that they drink water just like we do.

Every day we check on our ladybugs to look for any changes and to give them a few drops of water on their tiny sponge. Caring for creatures fosters empathy and responsibility for living things.

We can't wait until they become the red and black ladybugs we're familiar with! When they reach full adult size we'll bring their house outside and set them free.

Rainy Days in KB-5

We've been having a lot of Spring rain lately, but the rain sure hasn't stopped us in Kitah Bet. Although it sometimes prevents us from playing outside, there are so many fun things that we can do, find, and see, when it's raining. 

We opened up the window in the classroom during the rain, and children got such joy from sticking their hands out and feeling the rain. "It feels like cinnamon" Yaakov Meir said, and Sylvia said, "It feels wet." 

One day we had quite the rainy day adventure when while playing outside, it starting pouring rain all of a sudden- and we all got soaked! Getting caught in the rain brought such laughs and excitements all around.

Another day, we walked outside after the rain had stopped, and we noticed there were lots of puddles all around. There was one puddle in particular that caught our attention- it had rainbows in it! The children were entranced by the beautiful colors that were reflected in the puddle and stopped for quite some time to just admire it.

On Thursday while playing inside, the children asked to go outside into the rain and jump in some puddles- so that is just what we did! This one was definitely one of our favorite rainy day activities. 

When we go back outside after a rain, the children love to bring out some paper towels and go around the playground wiping up all the rain so that it will be dry for everyone. What great helpers!

We sure do know how to turn rain into rainbows- find the fun in everything and utilize everything is an opportunity to experiences new things and to connect to our environment and surroundings. 

Spring Sensory Fun in Pre-KA

Our spring-summer sensory bin encouraged a whole lot of hands on exploration. It was filled with bird seeds, nests, birds, eggs, flowers and more.

First the children ran their hands through the bird seed and explored the different items in the bin. 

We handed them cups and spoons so they could scoop and pour and fill and dump and refill .

They found the birds and nests and fed the birds some bird seeds and put them down to rest in their nests.

Then they discovered the eggs and kept filling them bird seed, when we kept it opened this created a bird feeder and when we closed it, it became an egg shaker.

Kitah Bet Introduces: Caterpillars!

Kitah Bet is very excited to introduce some new members of our class family. We've been learning about spring, the changes we see happening in nature as well as the role played by wildlife in this blossoming time. What better way to bring nature into our classroom than to host real, live caterpillars! Appropriately, our fuzzy little friends were introduced by our resident butterfly puppet, though introduction was merely a formality. The intrigue held by the caterpillars speaks for itself and the children launched into all kinds of questions and observations as we passed them around the circle.

Evan: "Look at how they move! Squirmy wormy all over the place!"

 Annabelle: "How can they get down from the top? (of the lid)?"

 Anslee: "They're moving!"

 Caleb: "They're climbing on top of each other!"

 Yannai: "They're moving!"

Becker: "What's that sticky stuff?"

Sammy: "When they're gonna be outside, how will they fly away?"

We're going to check on our caterpillars every day and note any changes we might see. The children can't wait until they spin their chrisalides and emerge as butterflies. Participating in the caterpillars' life cycle is a tangible way to to engage in a process, to follow a sequence of steps that organize themselves into beginning, middle and end. We're also delving into scientific discovery when observing and wondering about these live creatures, and learn to turn to research materials like books to find answers.

Pesach, We Celebrate, With Matzah, Maror and the Seder Plate

We're Ready for Pesach . . .

We learned a lot about spring.  On our trip last month, we noticed the trees, plants and flowers of our neighborhood.  We sketched the daffodils that were growing on our school's property.  We went on a springtime scavenger hunt, too. 

        Then, our Sensory Table became a Bug Bin.  Our table was full of pastel-colored rice, flowers and plastic bugs.  Signs of spring were everywhere!  (Above, Ari, Leiba, Yoni and friends enjoy Morning Arrival time at the Bug Bin.)

        We worked in pairs with pastel-colored chalk as we sketched rosemary and azalea flowers.

       It's spring, and we know that Passover is just around the corner.  It is known as the Springtime Holiday.  Morah Yael shared a story with us.  It was about a hen who grew wheat from seed, harvested the wheat, and made matzah.  Morah Yael held up a sheaf of wheat for us to see.  We touched it, too.  Then, we used a rock to grind it.  The kernels were very tough!

       Morah Dena was our guest reader. She also shared a book about Pesach.

     Matzah Man became one of favorite stories.  Rami and Noa retell the story using the Matzah Man puppet.

     At Circle Time, we played a game:  Passover food or Chametz?  We took turns placing our food magnets on the floor in the appropriate place.  Our surprise?  We discovered that so many delicious foods, like apples, bananas, pears, oranges, are permissible on Pesach.  We had focused on the chametz foods, not realizing that there are so many "regular" foods for us to eat.

     Our Morah brought in fresh parsley for us to experience.  Many of us use parsley for Karpas, to dip in salt water.  Reed gets a close look at the parsley and begins making an illustration of it.

     Sam prepares his Mah Nishtana book.  Because we learned how to sew on burlap earlier in the year, we continued with this skill when we made mini-Mesubin pillows.  We know that reclining is a sign of freedom, and that we recline at the Seder.

     (Above: Ruth uses our parsley to create a page in her Mah Nishtana book.)

(Ari, above,  uses a sponge when working on her Mah Nishtana book.  Below, Hannah works on her book.)

(Below, Henia and Leiba using gold paint and sponges on their Mah Nishtana books.)

                        (Above, Sam sets the Pesach table; below, dramatic play at the table.) 

     As they set the table, the children asked, "Do we need candles on Pesach?  Grape juice?"  There are so many similarities between the Seder and our Shabbat table, and so many differences.  We sang some of Mah Nishtana, Why is this Night Different.
    We learn other songs, too:  parts of Dayenu, Who Knows One, and the refrain from the Order of the Seder song.   We like singing, "Pesach, We Celebrate . . ." (To hear the Uncle Moishy tune that we sung in class, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSMQLQcq5x4)   

     Morah Susan brought a big piece of cardboard to class.  It was huge!  What goes on in her house, we wondered.  Our Morah told us she bought a new outdoor table, and she had saved the box for us.

     We took the box outside and painted it.  It became the sea, for Yam Suf, the Reed Sea.  We gathered our toy people and horses to act out the story.

     (Below:  Ari and friends decide to add cars to the parting of the sea.  It's not as odd as it seems; the story is real.   When the children use representations of actual items in their lives in their dramatic play, it heightens their sense of closeness to the story.)

     After we completed most of our Mah Nistana books, we created Kos Eliyahu, Elijah cups, to use at the Seder.  We looked at a cluster of actual grapes to get an idea as to how to decorate our glasses.  We used glass paint, Q-Tips and Sharpees.  We learned the word cluster to describe our grapes, and the word vine, too.  When we examined the wheat with Morah Yael, we learned the word sheaf.  We are building vocabulary regularly.

(Below, Ruthie, Reed and Izzy decorate their glasses.)

     The Morot had to think about how the Kitah Gimmel boys and girls would bring their Pesach items home.  The teachers went together to the store, examining all the boxes at Richard's Variety, to see which one would be the perfect choice.  We brought some of the children's projects along with us and placed them in the different varieties of boxes.  We wanted to get a realistic idea of the spatial set-up.  We picked the boxes with the handles.  There were only about 11 on the shelf, but the cashier told us that there were 83 in stock!  We needed 16, so there would be enough.

     Days later, some of us went outside to pick flowers.  We made pastel-colored paint by mixing our regular paint with white.  We didn't know what to expect.  Then we realized that the colors got lighter!  We should do this again.  We dipped the flowers in the paint and used them as brushes on our boxes.  So pretty!  The colors remind us of spring, and spring reminds us of Pesach.  Some of the pieces of the flowers stuck to our boxes, adding a little bit of texture. 

     Levi works on his Shmot stick-puppets.  He can take these out at the Seder to act out the story of Baby Moses, Miriam and Pharaoh's daughter.  There's an adult Moshe, too.  Levi can continue the story . . .The stick puppets will go in his Pesach box. 

     So, of course we learned a lot about the story of Passover.  We learned about the Seder rituals, too, and some of the songs.  A big part of Passover is getting rid of the Chametz, so we had to clean, clean, clean.  Ari found some smidgens of left-over lunch in her cubby.  It was yucky, but we're big and mature, and we can clean.  We can help out for Pesach.  We're capable of cleaning, singing, setting the table, contributing to the conversation and so much more.  Enjoy!

  Happy Passover!

Morah Susan and Morah Yael