Countdown to Purim!

Parshas Vayikra

We learned an important lesson from this week's Parsha. When a child makes a mistake he needs to want to say sorry. If a child doesn't want to say sorry, a morah or a parent would remind him that it's the right thing to do. The same is when a person makes a mistake towards Hashem, he needs to bring a Korban (sacrifice). If he doesn't want to bring it, the Kohen will force him until he wants to bring the Korban. 

The reason why a Kohen will force him to want to bring a korban is because a Jew really does want to do the right thing , but sometimes his yetzer hara gets in the way. The children shared some stories of themselves where they knew inside that they really wanted to do the right things but the yetzer hara came and blocked them. 

"Now I understand why I need a reminder! Because I really want to do the right thing!" - Motty

Purim Is Coming!

We are so excited for Purim. We discussed costumes, Shalach Manos (food gifts), Megillah, and all the mitzvos of Purim. We concluded learning the story of the Megillah.

Morah Avigayil is playing out the story of Purim with puppets! Each child made their own puppet set to tell over the story of Purim to their family! 

Yisroel is putting the pictures in the correct sequence.

The whole class is working together to create the proper sequence.

Capit Hebrew 

Malka brought from her home the new sound "נ", the nose sound. 

We also learnt the shark and sail sound "ש" and "שׁ". Yisroel is saying "Shark" and Malka is saying "Sail away quick!".

The children were so excited to practice reading Hebrew with flash cards. 

 

Rhyming Words

Ask your child what rhymes with: vet, cub, red, mug, pot....

We played a matching game, the children had to match the rhyming word. A match would be mug and hug.

Aleph Beis Adventures: Final Fay

Using fly-swatters to land on the letter!

We had so much fun, using these! We love the smack sound!

Writing letters in shaving cream is a great sensory experience!

Exploring the "T" sound

"T-t-t-owers, Mendel built a tower with 9 levels!

"T-t-triangles and teamwork make a great art project.

 

Sorting out items that begin with a "T" sound

Who wouldn't want to be a Queen?

In the town of Shushan was a powerful king named Achashverosh. He loved to boast and show off what he owned. This was a huge contrast to last week when talking about Mordechai and Esther.

Our friends were invited to paint the backdrop of our palace this year!

Emma playing the queen role.

Dressing up is so much fun .

We kept contrasting the difference between the Jewish home and the palace to help set the stage of how the Purim miracle took place.

Mordechai would teach the children Torah. 'Mordechai' leading circle time one morning.

 Mordechai reading the mitzvah notes.

The children felt so special to connect to Mordechai and Eshter.

King Achashverosh needed a new queen and Esther was NOT happy to be picked.

Why? Who wouldn't want to be the queen and get all the glamour and perks of being in a gorgeous palace and married to a king who ran the world?!

After spending a week getting to know Mordechai and Esther our friends knew exactly why!

She was a proud Jew, how can she be both a queen and keep her Torah and Mitzvahs a priority?!

Mordechai knew that her being the queen would play a pivotal role in helping the Jewish people and ultimately saving them with Hashem's help.

The solution- Being a Jew IN the palace and in hiding she kept all the Torah and Mitzvahs. Hashem is even in the palace!

During circle time we had friends help Esther find the hiding mitzvahs in the palace.

Eli found the Tzedaka box!

Hugging the Torah by circle time IN the palace!

Emma and Esther giving out the Tzedakah!

Getting ready for Purim, working on our projects.

 Dressing up and making self portraits. Mina wanted to wear glasses while making her face.

Friendships we cherish.

Parshat Pekudei: Blending it all Together

In this week's Parsha we learnt that when the clouds of Hashem came down on the Mishkan it was a sign from Hashem that the Jewish people need to stop traveling and when the clouds of Hashem left the Mishkan it was a sign to continue traveling.

In class we spoke about how today we don't have the Mishkan and the Bais Hamikdash yet, but we do have the ability to make our home or our room into a Mikdash.

 

When we learn Torah and do Mitzvos we draw Hashem into this world and make Him stick to us like a magnet. The world is the bag of water, the magnetic sand is our Mitzvos and the magnet is Hashem. But when we do the opposite we make Hashem feel uncomfortable and want to leave us.

 

Dovi and Evan are modelling for us how it feels to be so close to Hashem when we learn Torah and do Mitzvos, so very  tight.

Blending It All Together

Last week Mitzvah Menchies practiced caring for the earth, by reusing our plastic drinking cups for the whole day. We marked this off on a chart. This week we got our cup-related prize! Our own personal smoothies!!

Choosing the fruit to go inside can be hard, there are so many sweet options!

Evan presses the button to blend his fruits together!

This is the life!!

Reading In Hebrew 

I'm so proud of each and every child in our class. All of our kids are blending, reading words and sentences. I know how hard they work to practice their homework. Keep it up!!

Vowels And Consonants

We played a fun game where each child was given a bunch of letters and was invited to sort them into vowels and consonant.

Rozie set the letters in the right order and Malka set the pictures to match the beginning sounds of  the letters.

Aleph Beis Adventures!

Faiga was so excited that we finally got to the Pey/Fey week!

Fey is the first letter of her name.

Underneath one of the cups is a pom-pom!

Read the letter, lift up the cup and claim your prize.

Getting in the Adar spirit with a rousing game of  aleph-beis freeze dance!

We explored the letter "S" this week.

We took our discussion of gravity and friction outside to slides!

We pushed different things down slides and timed which ones were faster or slower.

Recording our findings on a chart!

We wondered...

Will it slide? Fast or Slow? Will it Stop? What Shape?

Reverse Bingo with sunflower seeds. 

if you have the number, eat the seed!

Sticky "S" with contact paper. 

Fine motor practice and letter recognition

Two special Jewish Heros come to life!

Jewish Holidays are a special opportunity for us to instill life lessons in our students. Purim is around the corner and we will soon be reading from the Megillah.

As an introduction to the story of Purim and the miracle that took place, we first wanted the children to really feel connected to the two heroes of the story: Mordechai and Esther, and to most importantly view them as role models for their own lives.

Mordechai the leader of the Jewish people at that time, was also a 'Rebbe' (teacher) of small children and would teach them Torah!

Esther a modest Jewish woman who filled her day with many mitzvahs, would play a very important role in saving the Jewish nation from harm.

How powerful for the children to really get to know them and feel empowered that THEY can be just as great as them, thousands of years later!

Mordechai & Esther's Jewish home

Our dramatic play center turned into "Mordechai & Esther's  Jewish home." We filled their home with items that might have been found if we went back in time and were invited by Mordechai and Esther themselves. Lots of Judaica, Shabbat supplies: candles, challah, Tzedakah. 

Our little 'Esthers' lighting the Shabbos candles.

We placed directions how to braid a three braid challah dough on the table for those who wanted to teach themselves. 

Sweet conversations over making challahs.

Very busy cooking delicious challah in time for Shabbos.

We placed pictures of them giving Tzedaka at the 'Tzedaka center' in our Jewish home.

Esther wanted to sing a Torah song to her little baby.

We do Mitzvahs just like Mordechai and Esther!

We drew our favorite mitzvahs. Sholom showing our Mordechai and Esther puppets his Mitzvah of hugging his friends.

Coins and sorting skills on sticky contact paper.

Tzedakah and sensory. We hid many coins inside the play dough. Our friends had to work hard finding them and placed the coins in the Tzedakah box.

Placing black beads as the 'raisins' on their challahs and practicing our counting skills.

Sholom our Alef Beis pointer at circle time. Mordechai, even though being a Jewish leader over thousands of Jews, his most important job was teaching little children Alef Beis and the Torah!

This week we included Mordechai and Esther in our mitzvah note routine. After reading each child's mitzvah note they taped them onto Mordechai and Esther who would have been so proud of them!

Catching sweet 'Mordechai & Esther' moments!

Friends role modeling sweet and kind behavior. This was also a great conversation started to wonder what type of manners and kindness Mordechai and Esther had.

Adelle stood by the sink and helped all her friends by holding the water faucet down.

Mendel and Sholom while waiting for their friends at line up time decided to give each other a hug!

Emma noticed Mina was trying to reach her challah dough in the oven and helped her out.

Happy Birthday to our dear friend Chanie on her 3rd birthday! We love you!