Israel Here We Come! Kitah Alef

 Kitah Alef went on a trip to Israel. We had to take a ship to Haifa and that was great fun! Ezra was the captain, Caleb steered the ship, and Sammy was the look out.

 After arriving at the port of Haifa, we made our way quickly down to Eilat. We just couldn't resist the beautiful sparkling waters and boats.

 We had to make some sun visors for everyone, because the sun was so hot!

 Everyone wanted to stay in Eilat for a long time and so we did. Next time we will visit a few more cities in the Holy Land.

 We finished the day with a wonderful picnic for Maddy's Birthday. Happy Birthday Maddy!!!

KB Visits Israel

What an adventure.
We started off by going through security and then onto the airplane.
We were greeted by our Captains Leah & Rena and Flight Attendant Esther. Once we were off flying to Israel, we ate some snacks on trays, just like on real airplanes.
We landed in Israel, Bruchim Haba'im.

First stop the Kotel, we did our tefilla circle time there and wrote letters to Hashem, thanking Hashem for the wonderful things he has given us, like our families, our toys, our babies.

Next stop, the kibbutz, to milk a cow.
Then off to the beach. At the beach we dug for shells and artifacts and decorated sun visors because its very hot in Israel.

Last stop was the restaurant for lunch. We enjoyed an Israeli style lunch of pita, hummus and israeli salad and then it was time to fly home.

Shalom!

Morah Leah

Mother's Day in KDH

Preparing for Mothers Day is always sweet. 

We interviewed each child by him/herself about the mothers. What did we find out?

Our mothers range in age from 18 to 80 years old. 

Pink is a popular color. Purple and yellow come in second. Others like green, glitter, blue and black.

Chicken and vegetables are favorite foods. One mother's favorite food is her son. Don't we all eat up our children!!!

A few mothers have a favorite place to go to: the grocery store. Others prefer Home Depot, dance class, the gym, zoo, Catch air and restaurants.

What do our moms like to do with the children? Hugs and Kisses are definite favorites. Other mothers take their children to Target, zoo, Catch air, for walks, the park, play Lego, cook with them, read books, build towers together, play games, play catch. One mother's favorite thing to do with her daughter is to drive her to IJP!!

Our moms are the best ever because they take care of the children, they love them, are nice, good and helpful, take the children to ice cream stores and are pretty too!

Morah Ruth

Making Mountains in KB

This week we brought the concept of Har Sinai (Mt. Sinai) to life in our classroom through some hands-on activities.  To make our mountain we had a little outdoor painting fun - we brought a large paper to the playground along with brown, green and yellow paint.  After painting the entire paper, we used paper towels to blot the paint for a more textured effect.  When we cut it into a mountain shape, it really looked the part!
Flowers were next - taking squares of tissue paper, we scrunched them with our fingertips to make the flowers and took turns reaching up to stick them on Har Sinai.  For the finishing touches, Morah added a fence around the mountain and a picture of every child to illustrate the idea that everyone was present at the giving of the Torah - even them!  They love pointing out the pictures of themselves and their friends around Har Sinai.

We also made mountains out of clay.

Shabbat Shalom

Morah Rena

Geo-Boards in Kitah Gimmel

Rubber bands…. A terrific (and fun) fine motor activity.  For the first time this year, we brought out the Geoboards – pegboards.  Add rubber bands and it not only stretches their imaginations but also strengthens their fine motor skills all at the same time.  The yeladim were using their small motor pinzser grasps to stretch, pull and loop over the pegs.  It allowed the yeladim to create linear designs, spatial design, problem solve and to just create!  They could create with 1, 5 or “27!” rubber bands! One child even “stretched” his imagination by connecting 2 boards together with simply a single rubber band. 

Some rubber bands went flying across the table but mostly the yeladim were very focused and busy on designing and in some case redesigning the shapes and stories they created.  This simple board also allowed the yeladim to create stories about machines, gardens and spaceships just to name a few. Actually, these are there own words…

“A spaceship – it travels above the moon to Mars!”,  “It’s a drum, and it can make a cool trick too!”,   “It’s something for counting number!, ” “It’s a trianguly thing.”, “A machine, that makes all kinds of drinks!”, “It’s a monster truck – they tip over things!  They trip over trash cans because their tires are so heavy, they can’t believe it!”, “It’s a musical instrument and listen to it sing!”, “It’s a circle inside of a rectangle.”, “I made lots of lines going up and down and now I’m going to make a lot of lines going side to side!”, “This reminds me of a garden, look at the flower!”