January 11-15, 2021

Garinim:
This week we talked about arctic animals. We learned fun facts about penguins and polar bears:
Penguins have flippers, not feet
Penguins spend half of their time in the water and half of their time on land
Penguins use their beak to eat fish
Penguins have waterproof feathers
The Emperor Penguin is the largest penguin
Polar bears live in the Arctic
Polar bears actually have black skin, but their fur is transparent and makes them appear white colored
Polar bears have 42 teeth
We learned a new song about the continents:
“North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Don’t forget Australia, what about Antarctica”...

We made Polar Bear faces, cute black and white penguins, and polar bear paw prints
 
Alim:
We welcomed our new classmate, Grace, on Monday.  All the children welcomed her with open arms and we're all so happy she is part of our 'Alim' classroom now.  In the practical Life area, we had many new activities this week.  The children have enjoyed the sanding pouring work which involves transferring sand into different containers.  Also, another new work that was shown is called Lids and Containers which is an assortment of containers with different lids.  This is a fun fine motor activity. We continue with our winter art.  The Sound of the Week was "Hh".  We read the Alphatale book Hide and Seek Hippo. We will be starting a new kindness curriculum.  It involves the teachers modeling good manners and rewarding the children for good acts of kindness.  Next week we will have a KINDNESS JAR.  When a teacher observes acts of kindness, we will fill the jar with a pom- pom.  When the jar is filled,  the class will have a special reward. We will ask the children for their input on what rewards they would like.  For example, 10 minutes extra of playtime, a Pajama day or even a show and tell day.  The kindness curriculum has started with a discussion about being mindful of feelings of oneself and others.  For example, when someone is talking to you try to make eye contact and have your body facing the person when you're talking to them.  
 
Our letter of the week is (yud)  י. Many of the children enjoyed tracing their יד (hand) to create a “tree” in the winter. They loved dipping a finger in white paint to add “snowflakes” above and around the tree. We also covered Shemot and quickly reviewed Moses as a baby, a prince and leader of the Israelites. Since there was a lot of material to cover, I performed three “tricks” to keep the children engaged. My hand became white with the help of a cloth, a rod became a snake (toy) and water turned into blood with the help of a few drops of red food coloring at the bottom of a clear jar. The children were amazed by the final trick! We ended the week with a focus on kindness continuing with the theme that will be developed for the rest of the year. The children absorbed the various examples given by the book: It’s a...It’s a...It’s a Mitzvah.-- 
 

Anafim:

We read books and discussed issues of fairness, respect, kindness - within the context of Martin Luther King Jr. We learned about his life and experiences as a young boy in Atlanta, Georgia, his feelings and frustrations. We recreated scenes and imagined how we might feel if ex. only the children with light color hair were allowed to go Disney World?! We spoke about the bus boycotts and peaceful marches... We also read about Rosa Parks and her experiences, refusing to move to the back of the bus, being arrested for this, and her life as an adult - an advocate for change, for human rights, womens' rights; the struggle continues. One of our art activities this week included tracing and cutting a paper heart, decorating it and placing in the 'Kindness Basket.' Whenever someone does something kind, we write it up on one of the hearts and post it on the giant red heart on display in our classroom. 
 
Keshet:
The children completed their Kindergarten Textbook A and are excited to bring them home! They may have missed some pages for one reason or another - encourage your child to sit with you and share together. We continue to work on the analogue clock - counting the thirty minutes, half way past the hour. Some of the children chose to stitch a little fabric wallet and filled it with classroom coins to 'buy' objects at the 'store'. Counting pennies and nickels and exchanging dimes for pennies - and playing with items bought :) 
Journal writing is encouraged daily; sometimes independent entries, sometimes with help from Morah Lana or words copied from their personal dictionary. Wednesday we 'picture read' Little Red Hen and based on the illustrations, the children provided words for the covered script and then we uncovered the words and took turns identifying capital letters, quotation marks, comma, period and exclamation mark. 
Earth Science was started this week.  We discussed the Layers of the Earth: Crust, Mantle, Outer Core and Inner Core.  We did a paper project in which the children made their own model of the Layers of the Earth.  The kids seemed to enjoy that activity.  Also,  we made a clay model of the layers of the Earth as a group.
 
See this week's photo's here https://photos.app.goo.gl/PYuxedE1eWjbNwed6

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