How do preschoolers host? Learning from Avraham & Sara!

Parshas Vayera

This week we focused on the first Jewish couple Avaraham and Sara, who made it their life mission to teach and inspire others about Hashem.

The lesson was brought to life by turning our dramatic play/kitchen center into a big four door tent - to re-enact the story of Avraham and Sara being so kind and inviting a lot of guests into their home.

 

The Three miracles that took place

1) Sara's candle stayed lit all week!
one child remarked, "So Sara sang the song "Aish is fire all week?" (this is the song we sing prior to lighting the candles at our weekly shabbat party!)

2) The Challah stayed fresh all week long!

3) There was a special cloud over the tent to show Hashem was so close to them, always watching over them!

Our BIG IDEA for this week was the children to experience the joy of Hachnasas Orchim- inviting guests.

To accomplish this, we invited our neighbors: the mini Lamplighters- to come to our classroom for some cookies! In order to host, we needed to prepare! Here's how ....

Play dough cookies

Bottle caps as cut outs and real trays was a great way to role play making cookies.

while playing this was a great way to discuss all the different nice things we can do to take care of our guests!

working on many different flavors

Placing the 'cookies' in our pretend oven in the tent

Levi Yitzchok placing another batch for more guests!

A lof of creativity went into hosting each other in Avraham and Sara's tent

Role playing the washing  of hands for Sara's delicious Challah!

Our Preschoolers Host!

Making REAL cookies for our guests the Mini Lamp Lighters!

During our preparation, we spoke about being sweet and extending an invitation. We discussed serving our guests first (before oneself) and reminding them to say a Bracha on the food (as did Avraham!) 

The children were SO excited to put it into action! 

Welcoming them in with big smiles!

Levi serving his sister before tasting his own!

Happy guests!!

Morning fun

Using foil as a medium to paint onto and place shaving cream on-- was a fun way to experiment with a different look and feel.

Creating designs in the paint!

Scissor activity.

Created a very focused cutting center- by tying a scissor to the bowl . The children were invited to follow the lines on the strips of paper while getting the pieces in the bowl!

Working with glue to create a "parsha project" of Avraham & Sara's tent

Gardening

Friends

You are a STAR!

Lech Lecha

This weeks Torah portion we learn about a very special person named Avraham. He was the first Jew who discovered that there was a G-d in the world! The amazing thing is, he was three years old when this happened! The average age of the children in our very own class!

Our goal for this week, was to empower our students with this realization, that just as Avraham accomplished so much at age 3- so can each of them! We brought this idea to life, by helping the children recognize ways in which each of them are unique- and how much they can accomplish with their talents!


A great way to start this lesson was a birthday party for our new friend Levi Yizchak ! He turned three this week!

Levi Yizchak proudly kissing his brand new tzizis-- what a beautiful Mitzvah!

Avraham also did lots of Mitzvahs! He was quite bothered by his father serving idols and after a little adventure walk, searching for Hashem.... "maybe the sun, but it went down after the day. Maybe the moon etc..."  He finally figured it out:

Hashem is everywhere and created everything and is IN everything!

Hashem was so proud of Avraham, that he became the very first Jew and Hashem granted him a blessing that the Jewish nation (his children) will be as many as the stars and the sand!

Each of us is a unique and special STAR!

Lilah working with lots of different colors of glitter decorating stars

Dovi enjoying the feeling of the sand and the glitter

Menucha working on a Parsha project

Devorah Leah ever so carefully walking her project to dry

Each child got a chance to be on the star chair as we sang:

Hashem loves you

Hashem loves _______

_____ is so special!

(Tune of  Barney's, "I love you"--please sing it to your child!  ;)

To develop this idea a little further,
While each child was on the chair, we asked them "Why are you special?"
Here are some of the responses we got:

Chanie, "because I am growing and getting big!"

Elilzabeth,  "Devorah Leah, Chani and Levi are my friends!"

DL,  "I like when Elizabeth is my best my friend!"

Dovi, "Muka's my friend!"

Shua, "Cuz Chaya my sister likes me."

Levi Yitzchak, "candies are yummy!"

Lilah- "Because my mom loves me!"

max- "Because I love my Jesse , my little puppy!"

Devorah Leah got so excited when she noticed a star on her dress!

Friends gathering around and discussing it!

Various fun activities to build pre-writing skills.

Levi finding the right nut and screw

Menucha strengthening her fingers by squeezing tweezers and placing pom poms in the tiny spots.

Aron balancing marbles on bath mat /suction cups

 

Levi working hard at removing shapes from a squiggly straw

 

Little legos are a great way to build engineering and math skills.

Max enjoyed adding pieces to a big airplane

 

Elizabeth being creative and combining two different trays! the nuts on the straw!




Shabbat Shalom!

Washing the world clean!

Noach

After spending a month on the concept of 'being sweet' the children knew exactly what was wrong when we began telling the story of Noach. The people were all being very mean and it was only Noach's family who were acting proper!

Hashem decided to 'wash the world clean'.

Hashem commanded Noach to build a Teiva- Ark . There were three floors:
Top floor- Noach and his wife Na'ama and their three sons
Middle floor- All the animals
Bottom floor- Trash

Through out the week we did puppet shows to bring the story to life.

A great way to review the information is to act it out themselves!

Noach's Teiva coming to life with blocks and animals! It was beautiful to see them work together.

When it fell down, our new friend Levi Yitzchak found some construction worker goggles to do some fix up work!

 

Animal inspired art

We placed different animals and the corresponding color paints to help the children create their own version of the animals.

Proud of his work.

Noachs Teiva project.

Creating little people to go in the Teiva required concentration and great fine motor skills. (Gluing and then wrapping a small piece of fabric over the wooden peg person.)

Animal beads.

Muka working hard on making a giraffe pattern with orange and yellow beads.

 

Beautiful lesson from the Rainbow!

After the flood, Hashem showed Noach and his family a beautiful rainbow symbolizing that there will never be a flood of such magnitude again. Now it was the people in the world's job to spread light by doing beautiful Mitzvah's.
Each Mitzvah that we do adds so much beauty to the world, just like a beautiful Rainbow!

Menucha painting her rainbow hat.

Yehudis glued all her colorful Mitzvah notes on her rainbow hat!

Learning our colors and great hand-eye coordination.

Chanie matching the correct color sticker on the big classroom rainbow.

We found a great book in our library that connected to what we have been learning!

Each color had many Mitzvahs!!

Davening on our Rainbow parachute!

So much fun giving each other a ride at the end!

Rain! So refreshing!

Different mediums to create rain.

Child inspired learning!

We pride ourselves in not just giving over our own "prepared curriculum" but also following a child's interest. By noticing what the children are passionate about, we deepen their learning by taking it a step further.
The last few weeks we noticed the passion and love our Levi A.B. had for our vegetable garden. The sheer joy in his face when the tomatoes were ripe....and then the challenge of helping him learn when it was "too early" to pick the carrots and strawberries!!

With this in mind, we brought a bunch of new seedlings and vegetables to plant, in the hope of helping him (and the other kids) learn the timings of when they are ready to be picked, and once again enjoy the "fruits of their labor!"