A Busy Week!

Our next class book is I am Happy When...
We asked the children to tell us times during the day when they feel happy.  One child talked about playing with his brother.  Daniel shook his head in agreement and told us about playing a game with his brother, Noah.  Since we like to encourage the children to think past that first easy answer, we asked Daniel if there was another time he felt happy.  He was momentarily stumped, but then a huge smile appeared and he gave us another example.  You can see how proud Daniel  is of his completed page.    Imagine this excitement happening everyday in our class.  Your kids are thinking and growing!!

Being able to name and locate the top, middle and bottom of a page is a pre-reading skill.  We knew the children could point out the top section, etc. so we wanted to challenge them.  Each child got slips of paper with the words top, middle and bottom and using some early decoding skills they glued the words in the correct space.

Then  they had to choose 3 different materials and put them in each separate area.

Jake and Govind are squeezing those pipettes into the yellow water and then carefully transferring the water to the holes in the white styrofoam.Since we have been studying bees, the children said that the styrofoam looked like honeycombs.

Amelia and Briana are developing strength in their fingers during this activity as they prentend to be  honeybees. They carry the nectar and squeeze it into the holes in their honeycombs.

Our September color is RED. We told the children to make a picture using only red paint. Noor is making a castle.

Patrick's red house is so cheerful as he carefully adds all the details.  The paintings brighten our room!



Suri and Jake are creating the ocean for our Jonah and the Whale art work. 

We asked the children to tell us if water could be any color other than blue.  Alex told us seaweed would make it partly green, and Charlotte talked about seeing the many colors of the ocean from her hotel window.  Emma made us all laugh when she reminded everyone, "If you don't clean your pool it all turns green!"  We brainstormed together to figure out how we could  use materials in ways so that each ocean would be different.  You can read the full documention on the board outside our room.   

Saul is using tape for his ocean and very thoughtfully cutting each piece to the desired length.

Patrick loves puzzles.   This  one looks fairly simple, but the colored stripes in "Jonah's" fish are similarly shaped so completing  it requires some trial and error.   Good perseverance!

Our first sight word is SEE.  Each child, when they are the leader, will tell us what they see in the room.  Together we will write a sentence, trying to sound out whatever the child has chosen.  Can your child read any of the words?

Zoey said, "I see necklaces."  Lots of letters to sound out!

We are off to cooking and since we had a bit of extra time, Cheryl took us into the garden so we could pick our own eggplants. Alex finds the perfect one for our recipe!

Don't drop that basket!

You can see some of the herbs we gathered too.  Cheryl is getting the ingredients for the eggplant chips.

Chopping, measuring and stirring...who'd have thought so many kids asked for seconds!

We try to do as much work as possible vertically.  Just like painting on the easel, working in this manner is wonderful for strengthening the upper body. In addition to building strength, Zoey and Noor are working on eye-hand coordination.

Emma and Suri are tracing a curvy path from the bee at the top to the one on the opposite side, at the bottom.  Many of the children made the connection between the curvy line on their papers to the the curvy line we are making with the caterpillar numbers.

We're sure you heard about the Curious George actors and their version of Jonah and the Whale.  Check out the pictures on the bulletin board! 



Thank you all for a wonderful birthday celebration!



Bees Visit The Temple!

Where does our Rosh Hashanah honey come from?



The beekeepers brought one of their bee colonies to school.  Look how intently Daniel is watching.  Even though the children saw the same demonstration last year, it is fascinating to see hundreds of bees working together for the benefit of the queen and the hive.  Zoey and Jake are inspecting a large piece of honey comb.



Briana seems entranced!  She wondered if the honey on the table came from the bees we were watching. 

Kim is showing the class some tools the beekeepers use to clean the hive.

Pretending to be a beekeeper...ask your child if he/she would like this job!

A smoker and some big gloves.....

which Daniel was happy to try on.

We ended with some beautiful photographs of the different stages  in a bee's life, prompting questions and observations.  The children remembered much of what we'd learned in class and were able to contribute to the discussion.

Rosh Hashanna Brings Sweet Learning!

Briana and Jake are working on the New Year's cards for their families.  Painting, tracing, cutting, glueing candles, and writing your name were all important steps in the card making process.

Noor has added candles to a birthday cake for the world.

The boys got into the bakery business, too.  As they were playing and pounding away, we asked the children what we might do at a birthday party for the world.  Patrick and Govind were quite sure there would be hot dogs and cool presents.  Alex told us a terrific story about a giant slide that started at the top of mountains.  You slid down and landed right in the ocean.  Whoosh....the story was complete with arm motions and sound effects!

Take a few apples, some interesting stones, a scale and some Curious George children and you have a math lesson.  The children were encouraged to balance the apples with the stones.

Sometimes the children worked together.

And other times they worked alone.  Since the apples were differently sized, as were the stones, each day the children could have a new experience while building on a previous day's learning.

Being able to verbalize an object's attributes is important not only for literacy development  (think main ideas in a story or building a more descriptive vocabulary) but in math and science.  Here Emma is grouping the apples by color.

Now we are trying to get the children to notice another attribute, their size.

We are graphing now.  Amelia is placing her apple according to whether or not it has a sticker.

Suri and Zoey are using pattern blocks to fill in the apple shape.  This is wonderful for developing spatial perception.

Another great game.  This time the children roll the die and put the apple together, much like a puzzle. Cheering on your team is part of the fun.

We looked at pictures of rams with different shaped horns as well as real shofars from Rabbi Allenberg.  The children were given a variety of materials and could choose to make a shofar any way they wanted.  Zoey is rolling foil.



Jake adds tape, pipe cleaners, beads and buttons.  Jake was really intrigued by this activity and worked on his shofar for almost 15 minutes.  Having enough time to look at, experiment with, and reflect upon materials is very important for children. 



Sometimes you need a friend to help you!

Noor and Charlotte wanted to see if the shofars were heavy or light.  Charlotte said, "Shofars are fragile! We have to be careful when we hold them."

After Suri made her shofar, she came to the science table to compare hers to Rabbi Allenberg's. She said, "The shofar is curly  like the curls in my hair." During our focus on shofars,we encouraged the children to use adjectives and similes.

Painting at the easel develops shoulder strength as well as being a relaxing activity in our classroom.  Daniel chose to paint an apple tree.

Alex was inspired by the array of Rosh Hashanah items on our science table.  An apple, a pomegranate, and a honey jar all found their way onto his painting.

Emma was adding grass below her tree and decided to kneel down to get a better angle!

Amelia told us she loves yellow, so of course she painted bright yellow apples on her tree.  If you look closely, you'll see she also added a honey bee for a sweet year. Good thinking, Amelia!

Briana's dad came to share Shabbat with us, but first Briana wanted to explain the pattern on our September calendar.    Learning in our room is even more exciting when we can "show off" to  our parents!