Gan Camarillo Preschool

Thursday, May 21, 2026

What’s Cooking for Shavuos? 🧀

This week we learned about the minhagim (customs) of Shavuos!
On Shavuos, we eat dairy foods. Just like a baby needs milk to grow strong and healthy, our neshama (soul) needs the Torah to grow and become closer to Hashem. Eating dairy foods reminds us of this special connection.
We turned our classroom into a dairy farm and found Mooooo-linda the cow ready to be milked!

What’s cooking on the dairy farm??

The kids got to use the fresh milk from Mooooo-linda to make chocolate milk or strawberry milk!

Avraham chose strawberry milk! Making choices on their own helps children build confidence, independence, and decision making skills. Especially hard ones like deciding between chocolate and strawberry......

Now that we have our milk, we should bake something special for Shavuos! Lots of learning moments while reading the recipe, sharing, and taking turns together.

Yehudis, is using her fine motor skills to carefully pour the milk into the bowl.

Yumm cheesecake!

When the Beis Hamikdash stood in Yerushalayim, people traveled from all around the world on Shavuos carrying baskets filled with their freshest fruits. They proudly brought their bikurim (first fruits) to gift to Hashem.

We played the song “Saleinu Al Kteifeinu,” which means “Baskets on our shoulders, we are bringing Bikkurim!” and passed the basket around. When the music stopped, whoever was holding the basket added a fruit from the center pile into the basket. We kept going until the basket was full!

Eli F. gifting the big melon!

We even waved our own baskets!

And filled them with the seven fruits of Eretz Yisroel!

Time to go to Yerushalayim!

Har Sinai was a small mountain that was brown and plain. But even though it wasn't the prettiest or tallest mountain, Hashem chose it to be the mountain that the Torah would be given on. Right before the Torah was given, Hashem made a miracle, and covered Har Sinai with flowers, so it would be extra beautiful to receive the Torah! Because of this, lots of people decorate their houses and shuls with flowers on Shavuot, to remember the beautiful flowers that grew on Har Sinai.

We made our own vases and flowers to decorate our Shavuos tables. Eli B. showed his true artist side with the beautiful colors he chose for his vase!

Flowers were frozen in our sensory table, and Theo worked hard to rescue them using warm water!

Pre-K Kria

Practicing writing the letter “Reish.”

K Kria

Playing World Builders, this time with a Shavuos theme!

Academics

As part of our science curriculum we have been learning about the five senses. Here some of our Pre-Ks complete a 5 senses booklet.

We did a sense of taste science experiment (salty/sweet/sour/bitter) and discussed and documented our observations.

Aftercare

This week in after care, we got creative for Shavuot!

We made beautiful flowers using spray paint, watercolor, and coffee filters to celebrate the holiday and all the beauty of spring. The children loved exploring different colors and textures while creating their own unique masterpieces. 🌸🎨

We also made special “Torah Glasses” aka our mitzvah glasses! To see the good in the everyone/everything! Just like Bnei Yisrael at Har Sinai were excited to receive the Torah, we are so excited for the holiday of Shavuot. Through this fun craft, the children imagined looking at the world through kind eyes filled with mitzvot, learning, love and joy. ✨

We want to wish Miya, Golda, and their family a happy and smooth move! We already miss you so much!

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

A cow comes to visit for Shavous!

Our class has been preparing for the Holiday of Shavous these past weeks.

What a treat to be greeted with a cow to help us teach a custom we do on the Holiday.

The Jewish people when receiving the Torah now learned about keeping Kosher. There utensils were not Kosher now and until there kitchens were ready they ate dairy products.

Our friends named the cow "moola" and she helped us learn how we get milk.

Where does all our favorite diary products come from?

Eliara helped us show our friends milk and how milk can turn into cheese.

Avigail, choosing a dairy food she like and putting it on our Shavous plate!

We got to make our very own cheese cakes. Banging the crust layer.

Playing a hide the Torah game. Which mountain do you think the Torah is hiding under?

Hashem made Har Sinai beautiful with all types of flowers, we created our very own vases for our Shavous center pieces.

We are so excited to receive the Torah! Inside we can find so many Alef Beis letters. We tried our best to trace letters using a feather attached to our pencils. A real sofer uses a special feather when he writes a Torah!

Making our own bubble snakes using a water bottle and socks!

A moment of growth, watching our friends organize a duck duck goose game all on their own.

Teamworking together!

A police officer came to visit us to say hello.

We loved hearing about her job to help keep us safe.

Friday, May 15, 2026

Mountains, Mitzvahs and homemade Pita!

This week, we learned the story of how we received Hashem's precious gift of the Torah.

Our friends helped act out the story of each mountain trying to be picked for this special occasion of receiving the Torah. Most mountains were boastful being the tallest or widest . Little Har Sinai represented a mountain tall and proud while remaining humble.

Ashira, helped us look inside the Torah and the holy special words that we received directly from Hashem through Moshe.

Yosef, showed us what different types of Torahs look from the outside.

The Luchos (tablets) we received which were safire blue and the Hebrew letters miraculously were see through can can be read the correct way on both sides.

We created our very own luchos filled with Mitzvahs that they do!

Working hard portion controlling the glue so it did not go in the middle.