February 28-March 4, 2022

 

Garinim

This week was spent talking about Dr. Seuss and Purim.  What better way to spend Adar then by diving into the mystical, silly Seuss books.  We loved listening to the silly books and participated in lots of activities relating to the books.  We had fun matching little colored fish to their correct colored fish bowl and later in the week we even used the little fish to work on our one to one correspondence with numerals.  We added Cat and the Hat characters to our sensory bin and were elated to have Thing One and Thing Two cause a little trouble with the rice.  We used an apple paper punch to cut out lots of apple shapes and then had fun gluing them on top of our own picture to see how many apples were up on top just like in 10 Apples Up on Top.  The Dr. Seuss books were the perfect introduction to rhyming words.  We spent some time trying to rhyme simple words and spent one circle time defining what it meant to rhyme. To rhyme the words have different sounds at the beginning but sound the same at the end.  We tried to come up with some rhyming words together and many of the children were able to do so.  The children also had a chance to work with some rhyming manipulatives to see if they could rhyme small figures.  

 

Another day at circle the children enjoyed hearing a retelling of the Purim story and learning all about the different characters.  We have been practicing booing and making noise when we hear Haman’s name (the villain of the story) and love to hear about the heroes of the story, Queen Esther and Mordechai. The children enjoyed making their own masks to depict some of the characters from the story as well. They are anxiously awaiting making their own groggers next week!  We have also been singing Purim songs including Hag Purim (Purim Holiday) and a rendition of if you are happy and you know it, but that talks about the different Purim characters instead.  

 

This week we introduced a job chart into the classroom so every child has a chance to help with different things in our classroom.  The children delighted in checking the chart every morning and are so excited to have a time to shine every day.  Ask your child what their job was every day!

 

Friday came before we knew it and we started to get ready for Shabbat.  We enjoyed learning a new song this week about giving tzedakah (money for charity) and why it is something that is good to do.  

 

Alim

This week we blasted out into Space.  We had many fun learning activities regarding 

Space throughout the classroom.  The children enjoyed new Practical life activities to help refine their fine motor skills.  Also, in our Art area there has been fun collage work and painting work.   There was cutting with the moon and a planet!!! There are fun Space learning activities to learn the placement of the planets.   Also, a new Planet song was taught to the children that we have practiced everyday.  If you would like to practice with them… it goes like this:

 

Planet Song:

Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars … (HURRAAHHH, HUURRRAAHH))

Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars….( HURRRAAAHHHHH)

Jupiter and Saturn are next in line….

Uranus and Neptune make eight….

and they all go revolving around the Sun ….(Boom, Boom, Boommmm) !!!!!!

 

The sound of the week was “Ww”.  We read the Alphatale Story called Wiggly Worm.  There were worksheets available for the children to practice letter formation and sound association.  There was a fun activity with playdough to form the letter ”W” as well.  We will continue our unit on Space next week.  We have more fun activities and books to read regarding this unit.  The children are learning so much and having a blast!!!  Hahaha!!!  

 

Alim YogaThis week’s theme was Outerspace - so of course, we acted out ‘Blasting OFF’ into Space through YOGA and flew to the moon where we explored our galaxy through our senses.  What did we see and hear in SPACE? ‘Shema/ listen’ to the sounds and how peaceful it is up among the shooting stars, and planets.  How did the moon sand feel? We learned about the lack of gravity in space - floated upside down in ‘candle’ pose and imagined ‘walking,’ or rather softly bouncing,  ever so lightly as we explored the moon’s surface.  Way Fun!! 

 

Alim Judaics  -  We’ve begun learning about our next Jewish Holiday - Purim.  It’s ADAR - be Happy!  So we are very excited to enjoy this holiday together over the next 2 weeks.  We are learning the song ‘ Chag Purim’ in English and Hebrew.  I shook my grogger every time to the words:  ‘rash, rash, rash’ and they are excited to make their own graggers next week in class. 

This week’s Shabbat celebration was a peaceful one.  My special helpers were Yael & Zeva. 

We waved scarves while dancing to the songs ‘Hal’l’l’l’luyah’ - waving Hello and saying ‘Shalom’, ‘Baruch Atah Adonai, Thank you G-d’ & “Oseh Shalom” - praying for Peace / Shalom.  We enjoyed reading ‘Shani’s Shoebox’ - which is a beautiful book about recycling a box and all the ways this box is recycled and turned into something special throughout our many Jewish holidays.  During Purim, it becomes a Shaloch Manot basket to share holiday treats with our friends and family. We then said our Shabbat prayers together - as we lit (pretended) the candles, drank our grape juice, ate challah and enjoyed snacktime together. 

 

Keshet

The Keshet students started the week immersed in the Purim story and were SO excited when I suggested that we could do a Purim schpiel (play) on Zoom for our families! They were completely engrossed in creating a scene from Sushan, Persia, which is now our large classroom mural. What fantastic teamwork, including discussion and negotiation on who would paint what and what colors would be used where. 

We’ve been doing a lot of phonogram practice (ea, oy, ai … sounds) using the green boxes and decoding words to match with corresponding picture cards. 

In science we are talking about sound and experimented with string and metal spoons and forks - attaching string tightly, winding around each forefinger and holding the string close to each ear while a friend hits the spoon with a ruler!!! In another experiment, sound vibrations were explored further when we filled jars with varying amounts of water (color added to emphasize the amount of water) and listened to the pitch by striking each jar with a metal spoon. Ask your child about using their 6 inch voice, table voice or speaker voice. 

In Hebrew the children are becoming quite familiar with the vowels and writing the Hebrew letters as they sound out words. (Far less complicated than spelling in English!) 

 

This week’s gym class with Coach Oren was called 'Mat Hide and Seek'.

5 mats to hide behind

Teacher counts down from 10

Teacher then selects a mat 1-5

If you are behind the mat called, you are out. If you are not behind the called mat, you're in the next round.

Goal is to stay hidden throughout the game and not get caught or give away your position!

Played until everyone is eliminated and then we start again!

 

Keshet Yoga Yeladim -  was in Outerspace this week - we acted out ‘Blasting OFF’ into Space through YOGA and flew to the moon where we explored our galaxy through our senses.  What did we see and hear in SPACE? ‘Shema/ listen’ to the sounds and how peaceful it is up among the shooting stars, and planets.  How did the moon sand feel? We learned about the lack of gravity in space - floated upside down in ‘candle’ pose and imagined ‘walking’/ or rather softly bouncing - ever so lightly as we explored the moon’s surface.  Way Fun!! 

See this week’s photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/hzYc9XmNCk9bZ2wE7

 

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