Week of January 30-February 3, 2023

Garinim

What a busy, wonderful week we've had!

This week, we began practicing a very basic grace & courtesy lesson: saying good morning to greet someone. Every morning at circle time the children are given a chance to practice looking at someone and greeting them with "good morning," then the other child waits for them to finish before responding in kind. Many children are still shy practicing this, so it's something we will continue to work on each morning.

We re-introduced dressing frames to our practical life shelf this week. Many children in the classroom are becoming more interested in fastening their clothing independently, so it is a perfect time to give them the opportunity to practice. Being able to practice zippers, buttons, and velcro tabs on the dressing frame at the table is so helpful for the children because it reduces the frustration that they have sometimes when doing it on the clothing they are wearing. Once they have mastered the work with the dressing frame, they will be more confident with the real thing!

This week Ella's family brought us a pomegranate for the snack basket, and we were so excited about it! With Tu B'Shevat coming up, the timing was perfect, too. On Wednesday we gathered around the table together to open up the pomegranate and see the arils inside. The children looked at a photo of a pomegranate tree and we identified where the fruit was attached to the tree as it grew, then learned that the arils are the membranes containing the smaller white seeds inside. These seeds are what the pomegranate tree grows from! For most children, the best part was tasting a pomegranate aril. Most really enjoyed them, though some were skeptical! We also learned just how easily pomegranate juice stains your fingers!! Overall it was a great experience, and we are grateful to Ella and her family for giving us the opportunity!

Judaica:

This week brought us a light dusting of sheleg/snow, which the children were excited to catch snowflakes/petit sheleg, on their tongues!

The children are getting ready to celebrate Tu BiShvat! Next week we will have our Tu Bishvat Seder with our friends from the Alim, Anafim, and Keshet classrooms. We planted parsley seeds/garinim in hopes that they will sprout. In keeping with the celebration of Tu Bishvat, the festival of planting trees, we have been reading stories about planting trees/etzim as is done in Israel at this time of the year.  

The children have used several different mediums creating their own unique artwork making trees for the holiday. Their trees have roots, a strong trunk and blossoming leaves.

Friday we had fun making green cloud dough in keeping with the Tu Bishvat theme! A squishy fun time was had by all!

We cheerfully welcome Shabbat in the Chapel with the continuation of the Exodus from Egypt. It was fun learning about the manna from the shamaheem/sky!

Anafim

Another busy week in our classroom this week.  We spent this week talking all about trees!  Tu B’Shevat will be here before we know it (starts Sunday evening) and what better to learn about than trees.  On Monday we created a list of things we get from trees, the children were very thoughtful with this and listed many items.  These included, air, leaves, wood, bananas, oranges, pears, peaches, olives, dates, almonds, pomegranates and more!!  We could not believe how many different things we get from trees! As the week progressed we spent time looking at the life cycle of a pine tree and looking at the different parts of a tree, including roots, branches, trunk, bark and more.  We really enjoyed reading many different Tu B’Shevat books, our favorite being Trees Make Perfect Pets by Paul Czajak.  The children really loved that the main character in this book chose a tree for a pet and showed how she took care of it.   

This week was our turn to make challah again and the children happily gathered around our circle table, joyfully measuring out all the ingredients and adding them to the bowl.  Some of the children were brave and strong enough to test out their pouring skills and how to pout to a specific line and poured oil and water into the measuring cup to just the right measurement.  Our practical life activities sure are paying off!  Having a chance to crack an egg is definitely a sought after job and the 4 children this week did so beautifully, remembering to wash their hands when they were finished.  On Thursday we gathered around that same circle table and rolled out our dough.  We took our time gently rolling it and gently maneuvered it the way we needed it to go before braiding it into beautiful loaves.  

On Friday we were joined in the chapel by Emma’s Dad.  We sang many of our usual songs and then settled in for the telling of the Torah portion.  This week we heard about the Hebrews escaping from Egypt after Pharaoh finally let them go. They escaped from the Egyptians when they arrived at the Sea of Reeds and the water parted when Moses raised his staff, however when the Egyptians tried to pass through on dry land the water went back to where it was and the Egyptians could not walk through.  This made it so the Hebrews were able to escape.   We also heard a bit about the Hebrews wandering in the desert and were out of food but were sent food from the heavens and this was called manna and it tasted of whatever the eater wanted it to taste like.  

Next week we will join the rest of the Montessori for our Tu B’Shevat seder (thank you to those that signed up to bring things!) and will talk more about trees and also about planting and growing.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Alim

This week we started to study TREES in science.  It’s just in time for TuB’Shebat.   We discussed the magic and mystery of trees.  We discussed …….What is a tree?  Some of the children did not know that a tree is a huge plant. We talked about how trees can live for hundreds of years.  We talked about how every part of the tree works together.  A tree’s deepest roots that burrow through the earth to the smallest leaf on the highest branch,  every part of a tree is working hard to help it survive.  The topic of How do trees live?  We briefly discussed photosynthesis.  Also, we talked about the parts of a tree.  We will continue discussing the topic of Trees next week.

On Tuesday,  we went down to the gym and joined Coach Oren.  The children played a fun scooter game involving racing one another.  They had a blast.

On Wednesday,  some children wanted to make Challah and mixed the ingredients together.  We reviewed numbers 1-10 in Hebrew and colors. Also, we talked about the Parsha of the Jewish people living through miracles of parting the sea and receiving Mana for food and water from the rocks,  Miriam’s well. 

On Thursday,  Morah Dawn came into our classroom and she gave a lesson on C D E notes.  The children enjoyed this lesson.  Also,  we braided the Challah and baked it. 

On Friday,  we went down to the Chapel and enjoyed singing songs with Morah Lana and the story of  the Parsha of the week.  Zevi took home the Shabbat Box.  We can't wait to hear about his adventures with our fox friend “Shual”

Keshet

It’s been a celebratory week! 

New siddurim! A big hit with this group!

Morah Lana’s birthday (thank you everyone! )

Lylah’s 6th birthday! Yom Huledet Sameach!

On Monday the children each received their very own (classroom version) siddurim and they were super excited!  Each morning as soon as they enter the classroom they head straight to the shelf which houses their books and journal and get out their siddurim! (I know it’s only been week one…!) They are very proud to be able to ‘read’ (recite) Modeh Ani, the Shema, Oseh Shalom and Adon Olam. We are encouraging pointing to the words, remembering that Hebrew writing begins on the right. It’s a little challenging trying to point to the words when you are used to doing hand motions :) 

We learned about two more planets; Mars, the last of the inner planets, and Jupiter, the largest of all the planets, with lots of clouds, swirls of wind and the red spot, like a giant storm or hurricane.  Hard to imagine that three Earths could potentially fit into Jupiter’s red spot! Trying out another technique, they marble painted Jupiter for their solar system mobile. 

We’re practicing TuB’Shevat songs ‘Hashkediah Porachat’ (Almond Trees are Blooming) along with actions, and ‘Tzadik K’tamar’ (a song about the date palms) and reading stories about trees;  their uses for humans, animals, insects, birds… and more specifically stories about TuB’Shevat.  Looking forward to our celebration of trees, a seder with all the Montessori classes on Tuesday morning!

In Music with Morah Dawn they learned how to play the xylophone with good posture and started to learn the letter notes and began to play the notes on the xylophone. 

And most importantly, lest I forget, they made ‘golden tickets’ as we marked the day that Charlie Bucket found his golden ticket on the exact date of January 31! (Coincidence, of course!!)

It was lovely to welcome Lylah's parents, and baby brother to our classroom on Thursday for the birthday celebration, and then Yael's parents on Friday for our Shabbat in the Chapel celebration. Web love visitors, and if any of you parents have any special idea or interest that you'd like to share with us, we'd welcome you with open arms and great enthusiasm!

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/dLjZXkwbKKTzoNon6



 

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