Rosh Hashanna Obstacle Course!

Emma starts off our course!  She is climbing the "mountain" to blow the shofar and announce the coming of the holiday. 

Charlotte's turn now.    Obstacle courses promote learning in a variety of ways.  Obviously,  it's a gross motor experience where the children are jumping, crawling and climbing.   As you look at the pictures and see just how many different movements are involved, you'll realize the class is also  listening to multi-step directions and  following them in a sequential manner. 

Noor is weaving through the apples, going in and out.  There's not that much space between the apples so the children had to be very careful as they walked.

Briana.....

and Saul crawl under the table. 

Pick up a ping pong ball.  It's hard to see, but these balls have stripes and bee faces on them.  Look how carefully Patrick is walking so the ball stays balanced on the spoon.  Our kids so often move at race car speed, and this activity forces them to slow down.



Alex has finished walking and his bee is going back to the hive.



Daniel's bee made it back too!

Now the challenge is to touch the bee hive.  Can you stretch your body that high?

Govind is on the ramps.  The kids have to go up and down as they walk.  Another way we challenged the children to control their body movements.

Suri is getting ready for the ramps.

Finally made it!   Jake is jumping on the X three times as he says Happy New Year! 

The children thoroughly enjoyed this obstacle course and we thought it was a great way to combine some Rosh Hashanah learning with movement. 

Did you notice the colorful childrens' names displayed in our room?

Multi step project....first step....

Saul and Patrick are tearing paper strips into smaller pieces, great for getting both hands working together.

Daniel is tracing over the first letter in his name.  Since we did this on an individual basis, we were able to talk about the  proper formation of the letter unique to that child and also the fact that all names start with a capital  letter.

Emma and Charlotte are squeezing glue on to their letter.  It truly is a challenge for many children to use just the right amount of pressure to get the glue to come out in a manageable flow while moving their hands to follow the lines of the letter!

Alex is carefully placing the torn paper on his A.

Amelia is counting the letters in her name and then deciding how many rectangles she will need to choose so she can complete the project.

Noor knew she had 4 letters in her name but only picked 3 rectangles.  (The N was already done......great example of Noor problem solving, and of how we try to bring critical thinking into so many activities during the day.)

We wrote the lower case letters on the rectangles and then the kids arranged them in correct order.

The first rectangle Briana picked up was the i and she carefully placed it on the paper as you can see.  We asked, " Why didn't you put the i right next to your B?"  Her response was great.  "Because that's not how my name goes!"  You can tell Briana already has a mental image of the spelling of her name, and good spatial perception!

Zoey knew she had 4 letters in her name.  She's using the pointer to find out who else in the class has the same amount of letters, and learning to recognize her classmates' names in the process.

Final step.....Everyone came to circle and we asked each child to tell us the number of letters in their name.  If they couldn't remember,  they were quickly able to recount.  Then, with the childrens' help, we grouped the names according to the number of letters in them.  We hung the names on the cabinet.  Here's something we didn't anticipate.  Emma was absent  on that day and the children were very very insistent we make sure to leave a space for her name.  We can already tell we're creating a feeling of community!





We've noticed the children using pointers and studying this name wall.  As Kevin Henkes says in his book Chrysanthemum, our names are perfect...absolutely perfect!

What Else Did We Do?

The shofar was the inspiration for the children's art.

Using a black marker and oil pastels, the children added curves and vivid colors to make their shofars.

Our A kids, Amelia and Alex, holding apples.

We play a lot of games in our class.  Counting the dots on the die and moving that many spaces is an easy way to develop one to one correspondence. 

Govind was lucky to land on the ladder so his team could "climb" ahead.  And sure enough, this team won. 

Being a gracious winner or loser is the ultimate goal of our game playing.  Here you see the winning team giving silent cheers.

The losing team is getting ready to slap their knee and say "Gee willikers!"

Cheryl was very pleased that the class knew the names of each fruit that they would be using in their Harvest Salsa.

Dicing all the fruit was a terrific upper body workout !

Learning about Rosh Hashanah always involves  dipping apples into sweet honey.  How clever were these girls to take an apple and a bee pointer and play together!

Another example of bees and apples.  Saul's placing these concrete manipulatives on the black numeral cards, making sure he's counted just the right amount.

Daniel and Alex were very interested in the habitat of  Spikey, the lizard, in the science room.

At the conclusion of our lesson in gan, Heidi took us to feed the chickens. Several of the children hesitated going into the coop because they thought that the chickens would peck their feet. We were happy to see that when, Heidi's instructions were followed they could experience the chickens without  worry.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The first week of school is all about checking out new centers, new friends, and new routines.

Zoey's at the science center almost every day.  She loves to sort the natural materials and explore with the magnifying glass.

More sorting and scientific discussion!



Noor and Suri were also intrigued by the science table.  Noor is placing objects in an ice cube tray, using small tongs.  She's strengthening her fingers which will help her when she's using a pencil or marker.



When we introduced our first focus letter, Aa, Jake was quick to say, "I have an a in my name."  The other children immediately followed suit.  This led to an impromptu discussion on beginning letters versus those in the middle of your name and also who had more than one a in their name.  We decided to take advantage of this discussion and created a graph for the next day's sign in, DO YOU HAVE AN Aa IN YOUR NAME?  Once everyone had signed in, we were able to count and compare the 2 columns.  Hooray for Jake for the inspiration for this math and literacy lesson!

We use pointers each day during the calendar and poem reading portion of circle.  Tracking left to right (moving your pointer in that direction)  is a pre-reading skill the children need to acquire.  You can see these girls are happily on their way to doing just that!!

Do you know the South African folktale ABIYOYO?  Its about a very scary monster and a father and son who work together to make that monster disappear.  This book is most definitely the favorite of the class so far.   It is always the first book chosen when the kids are finished with snack.  We love to see them all gathered around the book! 

Cutting is often a hard skill for pre-k children to master.  Our sensory table started off with strips of red paper and the children needed to cut them in much smaller pieces.  You can see construction paper, tissue paper and even some cellophane, all of which require different amounts of pressure when you're cutting.  Saul wasn't quite so sure he wanted to be involved in this......

so the next day we tried him cutting at the table with the teachers right there to encourage him.  It certainly worked because soon he was calling over some friends!

More cutting.  Next week we will begin our treasure hunt for the first initial of everyone's name and some other mystery objects so the table needs to be quite full!

Alex loves woodworking.  Using real tools is always exciting to children and gives them a better sense of being able to handle more grown up activities.  And don't worry...we had Alex push the goggles up so you could see who it was!  The children wear the goggles correctly when hammering.

Building with blocks happens every day in our room.  It is an opportunity for the children to work, converse and plan together since space and materials are limited.

Looks like Daniel is being treated by 2 doctors.  Dramatic play is another area where we see children talking and playing together, sometimes in real life situations and other times in pure fantasy. 

Our guided reading poem is all about circles and our first art experience combined printing, tracing and cutting and critical thinking.  Please look at the full documentation of this multi-step process on the board outside our room!

Play dough is wonderful for fine motor development.  Govind is rolling  and Emma just finished pounding.  Each movement uses different sets of muscles and requires fingers to move in different ways.  We usually talk about this in relation to writing but think about the fine motor needed to open up all those thermoses, baggies and containers in lunchboxes!

A quiet moment for Charlotte as she's very carefully moving the extra playdough away from the person she created.  It's a delight to see a child so engrossed in an activity, regardless of the "hubbub" surrounding her.

We'll hope to post each week with more stories and snapshots of the class.  It's going to be a busy year!