IJPeek 👀

Welcome to our first school-wide blog! I am so happy to be back at IJP, catching snippets of your children's exploration and discovery with every step I take around the school. With all the exciting learning and growing going on in each class, I wanted to be your resident fly-on-the-wall and make sure you got the full scoop. Follow me as we dive into each class' unique investigations.

                                                                                                                                        ~ Rena

KA/KB 9-1, 9-3

The two youngest classes have jumped headlong into fall. Using the natural teaching materials provided by the great outdoors, the children are offered opportunities to explore their properties using as many senses as they can. Morahs have brought the outdoors in by collecting leaves, twigs and other found items to use in provocations.

KA/KB 9-1 used their natural fall materials in an open-ended shadow box activity. The morahs catered to the varying age-and skill-levels by presenting differentiated tools and mediums. Children could choose to squeeze glue bottles with two hands or use the daintier glue brush with which to attach their leaves. They could pinch pipettes filled with paint or pour the colors from small jars. With open-ended art experience like these, children employ creativity, problem-solving, muscle manipulation and receive multi-sensory exposure. As their brains mature, they also begin to develop a storyline behind their work.



In KA/KB 9-3, tiny fingers are building their muscle strength by engaging in fine motor table activities. Ordinary salad tongs become invaluable tools as the children grasp them with their whole hands to move large acorns from one spot to another in a recycled egg carton. Tweezers further zoom in on the smaller finger muscles to help children catch fall leaves to collect in a mason jar. These exercises are crucial prewriting skills and also develop hand-eye coordination. 

KG/KD 9-1
In KG/KD 9-1, the children are deep into some serious multidisciplinary learning. Letters, letters are everywhere - first the children followed their interests to pick the current letter of study - L! Fall leaf exploration is the perfect foil to examine the properties of straight-backed L. At the table, children have become familiarized with this lovely letter by tracing it, stamping inside it and gluing leaves. Look at those pencil grips! They have also stretched rubber bands to form the shape, a tricky fine motor exercise. On the rug, children move their bodies to form different letters, highlighting the first letters of their names. Giving children opportunities to experience a subject in varied ways speaks to the child's multiple intelligences, allowing him or her to personalize and better retain the information.

KG/KD-9-3
The children in KG/KD-9-3 have been fusing their interest in literacy with their creative and social-emotional skills by entering the rich world of  dramatic play. Within the framework theme of pirates and explorers, the group created their own apparel after researching the history of these famed characters. Then they dove into maps - how they're used to represent physical space and communicate that with the reader - and then did some map making of their own. Together they engaged in a scavenger hunt around the school to find objects that began with the same letter as their names. This is a great example of child-led learning: following the children's initial interests, the morahs built on their initial foundation to include a multitude of important life skills. Dramatic play strengthens children's interpersonal interactions as they negotiate roles and responsibility, and adding letter recognition and writing practice is a great way to incorporate literacy. Designing and following maps hones spatial awareness and meaning in print. 

KH
Kitah Hay also created a multidisciplinary experience by opening their very own cookie stall, "The Cookie Crust."  The children worked collaboratively to bake the cookies, create signs and slogans, and run the operations successfully. This project combined a plethora of important skills including math, social cooperation, literacy, creativity and life skills.

First, they worked together to make the cookie dough. Following recipes is a real-life application of sequencing, and also includes math skills as they implement fractions. More math was applied in the actual transaction - when customers came to purchase their cookies, cookie shop "employees" calculated the amount of change, and tallied up their earnings. Designing the signs tapped into the children's artistic expression and emphasized literacy as they agreed on a brand name and wrote the words themselves. They even dreamt up their own slogan: ‘Cookies make you happy!’ 

Stay tuned for more insights into the fun and learning happening every day at IJP!

Keepin' it Cool in the Ice Cream Palace

One trip to the science teacher, Morah Mussy, was all it took... the kids were interested and we noticed! What was all of this excitement about? Ice cream, of course! Not just any ice cream, the kind we make in a bag, together, mixing and squishing and shaking, freezing and waiting. We asked the children why they loved ice cream so much, and this is what we got:

Because of these experiences, the children started making ice cream in the sandbox, during water play, and in the classroom. So we made a few small world trays and decided to turn our dramatic play area into a mock ice cream store.

Sela, Gavi and Sam are serving up cups of ice cream from the small world tray.

Asher made a cone out of brown paper and colorful cotton balls.

Lev found an air pump and is using it to pump up the ice cream. 

We made ice cream art using colorful paint, sponges and coffee grinds for added texture.

Then, something else happened: the ice cream truck came to our school!  Each child got a dollar bill to hand to the smiling gentleman through the window in exchange for his/her choice of kosher treat. The ice cream music was blasting and everyone was joyfully dancing throughout the whole process, which made the waiting much more exciting :) 

Expressing gratitude is something we do often. Here's Parker giving the ice cream man a picture he drew just for him. Mason, equally grateful, would rather pay money but made sure to say thank you for his treat. 

This got us thinking... we could do this! We could make our own ice cream and sell it! Our imaginations ran wild as we created flavors, toppings, pretend ice creams. We made signs and had talks of who would work where and whether or not we should have a truck or a store or both. All suggestions were heard and valued and everyone's interest was played out in one form or another.

 Yonah drew up a plan of how the ice cream store would look.  Here's his store, complete with a path that leads to the store and pipes on the top. 

Margot drew a map of ice cream all around the world

Asher created the flavor Strawberry Forest

Morah Nechama asked if we should have signs for toppings on our menu and Squirrel (Ziv) drew a sign for fudge. 

What kind of jobs should we have? Orli said that she would interview people for the store, her two questions were, What is your name? And, Do you like ice cream? She kept it short and simple and sent her new employee, Elliot, off to work in the store doing whatever he wanted!!!

Meet the Head of Hospitality, Margot! She's always making sure everyone is happy and has plenty of ice cream and toppings, particularly the unicorn kind. 

Erez and Ivy are the cashiers. They take the order, give the receipt and show their customers where they can wait. 

Once we became more familiar with how an ice cream store works, we were ready to assemble the menu and hang our signs.  We made small signs for the ice cream flavors and toppings but we also needed to create a big sign so everyone knew we had an ice cream store.  We decided on the name Ice Cream Palace and all chipped in on coloring and adding a border to the sign. 

Lily is drawing cookies, carefully placing chocolate chips all over, because she loves chocolate.

Adom is drawing a cone.

Mina is drawing lemon ice cream on top of a waffle cone.

Leora made a sign for the marketing team that says, Ice Cream Sale! "This way we can take it to the playground and let everyone know that we are selling ice cream!"

Asher and Margot are helping Morah Nechama create a giant menu.

On to the outdoor signage. Below is our big sign with a border taped on by the children.

Goldie helped Morah Stephanie hang the sing.

With all of this excitement going on, we forgot to mention that we're learning too! We've been thinking logically and collaborating on how to build the shop and what to put in it.  Our writing skills are becoming stronger as we write words by mimicking letters or observing others writing. We're measuring, counting and adding up items and numbers. Our vocabulary is growing and we're learning new words such as cashier, receipt, health inspection (yes, we had a health inspector come through to check on cleanliness!), signage... the list goes on.  Then there's the science of mixing the ingredients of the homemade ice cream and fudge.. and testing out flavors (everyone's favorite part).

Here's our final store front, seating is to the right. 

 We had a little help from the older campers in building the smaller tables and table decor.

Here we are learning our jobs as Morah Nechama pretends to be our customer.

Here we are in action, serving Kitah Daled. Orli and Goldie are taking orders, and Squirrel is asking how Sylvia would like to pay: with a high five, hop on one foot, silly dance, or counting to three with eyes closed. 

 The ice cream scooper is a big job!

 Erez waited patiently ( and didn't even eat a single topping ) for Sylvia to choose her favorite topping.

Not everyone was able to come into the store, so we took our truck to them! Kitahs Alef and Bet were very happy to be included, after all, who doesn't like to be served by superheroes and princesses? See below (extra pictures for added cuteness). 

Finally, we have to come to an end. How do we stop such a fun thing without feeling sad? With ice cream, of course! Our grand finale was an ice cream party along with baked and decorated cones and shapes for us to take home with us. 

Liav is painting his purple because that's his mom's favorite color. 

Elliot is making blueberry ice cream.