Left Egypt...Now what? Transportation in the Desert?

It was heartwarming to see the excited faces of the children coming into the classroom after our long Pesach spring break!

 

 For our first circle time we wanted to make a smooth transition into our next topic by reminding them of where we left off! With hands waving up at circle time the children together reminded each other of the Jews leaving Egypt and walking through the split sea.

 

 

"But then what happened??" I asked.

curious faces. 

"Where were their homes? Where would they live?  hmm should they go back to them in Egypt?"

"No way!" they chanted together :) 

Okay we got that part down.

I then talked about how the Jews traveled through the desert following their caring leader Moshe who they can trust .

We took this opportunity to give the children an appreciation on how lucky we are that we have SO MANY means of transportation!  Using many pictures of different ways we can travel  (bus, car, airplane etc...) we came to the conclusion that the Jewish people back then had none of that! 

 

They used their feet!

To get a real feel for walking in the sandy desert (and a wonderful sensory opportunity) I brought in a sand-filled bucket for the children to take turns walking on!

 The Jewish people COUNTED the days that they traveled in the desert, in PREPARATION for something very exciting. The receiving of a special gift from Hashem.

In this spirit- we've put a focus on MATH! (see next few blog posts for more on it!)

In this spirit of COUNTING and MATH...

We took the "Transportation" idea a step further in the afternoon....

The children GRAPHED the different modes of transportation based on SPEED!

 Hmm...which is the slowest? Which is the fastest?

Children had to think, compare, make decisions....place on graph!

Each child had a chance to think about and discuss with their friends which column on the graph the picture/method of transportation belonged to!

 

Activities like this develop the children's pre-math, critical thinking skills that will be needed later on in life.