Rosh Hashana

This week we all learned about the upcoming holiday of Rosh Hashana. We focused on the colors of apples and learned about the blowing of the shofar. We learned that Rosh Hashana is a celebration of the world’s birthday. We had the children create beautiful New Year’s cards and had them dictate to us what they wished for themselves for the coming up New Year. 

This week we did some collaging with glue on an apple cut out with red materials. This was great fun, and a good way to learn about colors; and what a wonderful way for us to strengthen our fine motor skills as we picked up small pieces of paper and place them on glue, which we squeezed out of glue  bottles with our strong hands! We also passed an apple around and described the way it looked and felt. The children gave us some great answers, such as, “its round”, “smells sweet” and “it’s smooth." We learned about where apples come from, and we predicted what color the inside of an apple is and what might be inside an apple. 

This week we learned about estimating. The children were paired in groups of two and asked to estimate how many apples tall they thought they were. After they made their predictions they lied on the carpet and had their assigned partner measure them with the apples. The children had a lot of fun guessing how many apples tall they were and measuring their friends.

We conducted an apple taste test where each child tasted a red, yellow, and green apple. Then each child chose which color apple was their favorite and then we graphed the results.  Believe it or not, there was a three way tie! Next, we moved on to honey. We baked delicious honey cake and sent a piece home. Each child had a turn to mix, stir, measure, and pour ingredients. We then charted what food we like to eat with honey. So many children said “apples.” How appropriate! 

We then experimented with sound. Last week we learned that there are three different sounds that the shofar makes and we got to learn the names of them; Tekiah (one long sound), Teruah (three separate sounds), Shevarim (nine small sounds)  This week we listened to the different sounds of the shofar, counted the blasts, and compared the different sounds that the shofar makes. Is it long or short? Is it high or low? Is it soft or loud? We then attempted to emulate the sounds, by blowing into our hands.

Songs of the Week 

"Five Little Apples"

5 little apples growing on a tree

5 little apples growing, I see.

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down came an apple- Mmm, was it good!

Now how many are left? (4,3,2,1…) 

"Dip the Apple"

Dip the apple in the honey make a bracha loud and clear Le Shana tova U’metukah have a happy sweet new year (tune of ole my darling Clementine)

(Tune to “Wheels on the Bus”)

 The Shofar in the shul goes toot, toot ,toot

 Toot, toot, toot; Toot, toot, toot

 The shofar in the shul goes toot, toot,

 On Rosh Hashana morning

PAINTING CLASS

We looked at Georges Seurat's famous painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte, where he used the painting style called Pointillism. We then painted our own pictures, by using Q-tips to create a similar style to Seurat. 

First Week of School

 Welcome to a new year! 

Along with transitioning and learning class routines, this week our unit was Getting to Know You. Part of having a successful classroom is creating a strong classroom community. It is important that we learn about each other as well as how to work well together. In order to get to know each other we interviewed each child about some of their favorite things and we will be creating a class book. They also shared with us what they can't wait to do this year. Each child illustrated a picture and then dictated their words to us. 

We additionally worked collaboratively to create a beautiful class collage. The children worked so nicely, sharing their space and their materials to craft our class masterpiece. We also worked together, measuring and taking turns, to make our class playdough. What a busy first week!

For math we graphed how many girls and how many boys are in the class. We then counted them out and then we added up the total. 

PAINTING CLASS 

This year I am teaching an afternoon painting class. We will be focusing on a famous artist and then creating our own masterpieces inspired by the artist of the week. This week we focused on Claude Monet and his Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies painting. I used tape and formed the shape of a bridge and then the children water colored the paper (over the tape). We then pull the tape off and voila! 

Frozen Pom Pom Party

All school year we have been filling a jar with pom poms. Every time we did a great job we added a pom pom to our jar. We have finally filled our jar and we are ready to celebrate doing such a good job. We had a class vote on what kind of  party we should have. Many themes were suggested, including: Pirate, Power Rangers, Superheroes and Frozen. Ultimately, Frozen won and all of the children are very much looking forward to the party! 

So, this week we had our Frozen party. We decorated the classroom with Frozen themed streamers, plates, napkins and crowns. We also got to order special pizza for the children and made ice cream sandwiches to keep up with the Frozen theme. We even watched clips from the movie. The children were so excited and really had so much fun! 

 

Yom Ha’atzmaut / Israel's Birthday

For Yom Ha'atzmaut we invited our Grandparents/Special Persons and created a workshop focusing on the different cities of Israel. We discussed that Israel has a birthday just like us. We learned about the different cities in Israel. and we pretended to visit them. We made pretend suitcases (and packed our items) and brought along our passports. It was such a long flight, but well worth it. 

The first city we visited was Jerusalem. The children had a fun time decorating brown paper bags and stuffing them with newspaper to create our class Kotel (the Western Wall). We learned that the Kotel is a special place where Jewish people come to pray to Hashem and leave him notes full of prayers and wishes. 

Kotel 

The next stop on our trip was Eilat. We learned that people go to Eilat to relax on the beautiful beachers and to go snorkeling on the coral reef. We played a fun matching game, where we had to match the color, shape, or number to the fish on the coral reef. We also played in the sand table, where we played a game where we had to find an object that start with certain letters. 

Sand Table Instructions 

We also visited Tzfat, which a very artsy city. Here the children crafted bracelets by using beads and forming various blue and white patterns. 

Lastly, we visited a kibbutz. Here we played and orange tree number matching game and made our very own orange juice. 

We also made a Special Persons book where each child illustrated a page for their grown up and dictated their favorite thing to do with them. We also baked delicious and beautiful blue and white cupcakes in honor of Israel. 

Space Week

We began the week off filling out a KWL chart. The children accessed prior knowledge and told us what they already know about the solar sytem. They then asked questions they wanted to learn more about the solar system. We had a blast trying to solve all of the children's questions and learning all we can about the amazing solar system. 

This week we read There's No Place Like Space, by Tish Rabe to introduce the different planets and help us understand them a little more. We learned that there are eight different planets, each unique i their own way. We discovered that Mars is red and dusty, while Jupiter is the largest planet, and Mercury the smallest. We also took this time to evaluate which planet is closest and furthest from the sun. 

We decided to make our own solar system using black construction paper and circular paper cut outs to represent each planet. The children colored the paper circles in the color of the different planets and glued them down on the black background, which represented outer space. The children put the planets in order and we labeled them. 

As a fun math activity we built rocket ships out of unifix cubes. The children got a sheet of paper with eight boxes (for the eight planets), each box had a different number written under it. The children had to make the rocket ships in the squares, depending what number was shown. This activity helps the children practice skills, such as number recognition and counting sequence. 

Being an astronaut sounds like a lot of fun. As a fun activity we had the children pretend that they would go visit in space. Each child dictated there words and they created a picture of them in space. 

All About Me (...Continued)

This week we continued our All About Me study and focused on our families. For a math activity we used unifix cubes to graph all of the members in our family. Whose family is the biggest and whose is the smallest?

We then constructed our own family trees. In order to fill our tree we labeled the tree’s leaves with all of our family members.

Furthermore, we discussed our individuality. Even though we have so many similarities we are all different and unique. For example, we each have a family, but our family structures are all different. To demonstrate our individuality we made fingerprints. Nobody’s fingerprints are the same! We used magnifying glasses to take a closer look to see how unique and one of a kind we really are. 

This week we enjoyed our science fair. We set up different stations around the classroom where we did various experiments with water. We decided to focus on water because we are in the middle of discussing our bodies and growing. Water is a very important factor in keeping our bodies healthy to help us grow. So, why not learn more about it? 

We did an absorption activity, experimenting with which objects absorbed water and which ones did not.

Use an eye dropper

 For another experiment we selected two colors, mixed them, and then discovered what those two colors would make! We then recorded our results by filling in our data sheet.

Then we had our penny experiment. We had three cups of water. The first cup was filled with tap water, the second was filled with soap water, and the third was filled with water and vinegar. Which cup do you think will clean the penny? 

                                             

For our last experiment we did a sink or float activity. The children predicted if they thought an object would sink in the water or float on top. The children marked their results on their charts indicating whether each objects is one that sinks or floats. What scientist we are!