April19-23, 2021

Garinim:
This week we continued our gardening and planting theme and also we talked about Earth Day!  We made construction paper carrots, painted plants at the easel, and made ball painted earth!  We learned a new word “recycling”, and talked about how we can reuse things to make something new. We also discussed how it is very important to clean up after ourselves. We had fun with our sandpaper globe and sang the continent song, so that we can see that people live all over our planet, not just in Connecticut. We also learned a new song:
“I’m a little fishy, watch me swim. Here is my tail and here is my fin.
When I want to have fun with my friends, I splash in the water and dive right in.”
We did Earth Day yoga with Morah Sherri, and checked on our pepper plantings—we are starting to see some sprouts!
 
Alim:
The children have been very busy doing a lot of Montessori activities in the classroom.  We took a pretend plane trip to Australia this week.  We got our passports stamped in customs (the kiddos love this) and discussed the details about this continent.  We talked about parts of a tree and some children made some Tree booklets.  We discussed Earth Day and how it's important to plant trees for generations to come. We have live Painted Lady caterpillars in  our classroom and next week we will start a unit on Butterflies. We celebrated Sammy's 4th birthday.  He really enjoyed the Montessori celebration with his classmates.  
 
This week's parshat Acharei-Kedoshim helped us review some of the important mitzvot that guide us on how to become more holy and special. We discussed examples for respecting elders, not lying, not stealing, not gossiping, helping the poor, treating others how we would like to be treated and generally being good people. To make the parshat more relatable for the children we read the books; 
A Children’s Book About Being Rude andIt’s a Mitzvah Grover! We focused on the mitzvah of Tikun Olam by decorating plastic containers that will be used to collect coins for Tzedakah. The picture selected is to remind us that Tzedakah starts in the home. We also continue to count the omer daily and are amazed at how fast the weeks are going!
 
Anafim:
Our caterpillars arrived this week and excited students created their Butterfly booklets with drawings and words.  We will continue to observe and record any changes.  Earth Weekincluded discussion about keeping our planet clean from air pollution (walking, riding bikes, electric cars), recycling, with reference to landfills, and recycling glass, plastic, metal and paper, with diagrams illustrating the process in each recycling plant.  Endangered animals, icebergs melting with global warming... there's so much to talk about. Art activities included shaving cream and ink printing (planet Earth), reflection paintings of natural wonders; trees, grass, birds and insects reflecting in the pond (water color pond and tempura painted land scene folded over to create the reflection) and recycled- object 'robot collages'. Your children are really busy!
 

Keshet:

We took turns to read (some with help) and follow the directions on the 'red action cards' (ex. 'nod and clap', 'hop and hum'...) while the others all guessed the actions. Introduction to nouns and verbs; he children read words and decide if they should be marked 'doing word' or 'name of something' and label accordingly with the black triangle (noun) or red circle (verb). The children who are reading more fluently created sentences with their word cards, with some sight words ('and' & 'the') included.
Math included measuring items in the classroom in feet, span (outstretched hand, thumb to pinkie) and inches (using a a ruler) and recording the answers. 
In Science the children made bird baths, decorated with fun designs. They really enjoyed the process of making something special for the birds in their backyard.  We talked about... What makes a bird a bird?  We talked about how some birds can fly, while some can not. This bird unit has been fun.  We will start something new next week.  
 
Please see this week's photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/ELDs3E6jUYVuHKrz5

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