Being a Bucket filler- power of kindness!

Ahavas Yisroel!

This week on "Mitzvah Street" we focused on the mitzvah of "Ahavas yisroel", loving our friends. 

It's not always an easy mitzvah to fulfil. Particularly when friends might say or do something not nice.
To empower our children with the tools to respond appropriately when someone might do something mean, we learnt about "Bucket-filling."

The book "Sara the Bucket-filler" helped us learn this very valuable tool! 

Everyone has an imaginary bucket. Sometimes our bucket is full, thats when we are happy. But sometimes our bucket is empty. When someone's bucket is empty --she/he will feel sad and sometimes do things that make other peoples buckets empty!
We learned that we have to try and fill our friends buckets and by doing that our own bucket will also be filled. 

"Bina the Bucket filler"

Our new friend "Bina the bucket filler" joined us at circle time and we got to see how it feels to have an empty or full bucket.

Esther shows us what her bucket felt like after 

she gave Ava a high five!

Mendel shows us the face he would make if someone 

says something nice to him

Faiga shows us how she would feel if 

someone did something not nice to her

Batyas bucket felt full when she did a trick to make her friends happy

The feelings on our friends faces as we read "Sara the bucket filler"!

Sholom exploring the soft vs. rough textures to help visualize
 what kind vs. mean words can feel like

Friendship Bracelets

One morning the children were invited to "pick a friend" (we had a bowl of pictures of each child in the class) to make a "friendship bracelet" for that friend.  This helped the children practice "Ahavas Yisroel" by gifting a friend with a bracelet! Ofcourse they worked on their fine motor skills to create these precious pieces!

Moshe making a bracelet for Mendel 

Esther was so excited to get a bracelet from a friend!

Team work- Coloring Mural

We practiced working with friends, giving each other space to color a big beautiful butterfly! 

Friendship Cookies

We enjoyed making cookie dough, and then shaping cookies to GIVE TO A FRIEND!

Experiencing the joy of giving and sharing with others!

Water play

We enjoyed a slip n slide and lots of wet water fun!

Reptile show

One of the highlights of our week was joining the older division to watch a reptile show!

Recycle inventions

Working together we created all sorts of fun things using recyclables!

Making and shaping Challah!

It wouldn't be mini Gan Izzy if we didn't end our day with ices!