A Daily Thanksgiving

A Daily Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving approaching, we decided it was a nice opportunity to zoom in on the fact that we, as Jews have an opportunity EVERY DAY to articulate our feelings and express our gratitude to Hashem for all that we have.

 (Next week we will touch on the historical story of Thanksgiving and why the founding fathers of our country were thankful to G-d.)

As Jews, we recite words of thanks to Hashem every single day when we  "Daven-Pray."  This actually begins the moment our eyes open in the morning with the prayer of Modei Ani. 

(Thank you Hashem for restoring the little portion of my Nesahma- soul, into my body.) We never take for granted who is giving us life every moment of the day!

Before our davening routine we did a little role play with a doll going to sleep, illustrating how Hashem takes a tiny bit of our Neshama and restores it, then returns it in the morning. Wow! this gave new meaning to the words we cheerfully sing each morning!

Shua showing us what he looks like when he wakes up from his sleep!

Devorah Leah showing us how she says Modeh Ani (in her bed) in the morning!

Personalizing the message

To take it on a deeper level, before we started our routine davening,  each child drew on a little sticky note what THEY felt thankful to Hashem for!

Their honest and precious responses were posted on a Siddur (prayer book) poster on our wall for them to look at before davening.

More opportunities through out the week to document and draw their feelings of thanks to Hashem!

The more we learned and talked about this, the more meaningful and thoughtful their responses became!

Our circle times were definitely giving Hashem a lot of pride and joy! So much to learn and aspire to be from watching pure little children sing praises to Hashem with their full heart!

GIVING thanks!

Another daily ritual we wanted to add meaning to, was the mitzvah of Tzedaka!

Now that we are so THANKFUL to Hashem what can we DO with these feelings?  A Mitzvah! 

By taking our own money and giving it to someone less fortunate: that is how we can light up this world with goodness and appropriately put our thankfulness into practical ACTION!!

In the dramatic play area we set up a little store and included a Tzedaka box on the counter by the cash register. We encouraged the children while purchasing their items to stick some of their money inside, which will go to poor people. Was a great hands on lesson.

Dovi giving all his money to Tzedaka ;)

Even the cashiers were giving Tzedaka!

Tzedaka Sensory Fun

For some Tzedaka sensory fun we hid lots of coins in the play dough and when the children found the coins they placed it in the Tzedaka box!

Learning the names of the coins and a math lesson

Each little round tray was labelled with a picture of a different coin: Quarter, Dime, Nickel and Penny.  The children were invited to divide the unsorted pile of coins in the middle of the table and match the correct coin while learning its name.

 Proud of all the quarters he found!

Hypothesizing on our Penny Experiment

We took three really dirty pennies and three different ways we would try to clean them.

Water, a lemon and ketchup.

We asked the children "which do you think would clean the penny the most, making it the most shiny?"

Majority of responses: "water!"

Now it was THEIR turn to find out the result of their hypothesis.

Max tried the water. Did get a little off but not too shiny...

Muka the Lemon

Shua tried the ketchup. The children found this humorous but the element of surprise was that it actually WAS the most effective of getting our penny shiny!

(We read the ingredients together and figured out it was probably the vinegar!)

 Shua wearing sunglasses - I guess it was really shiny!? ;)

Enjoying the moment....

The city tree trimmers came to our street this week - was a fun observation for our curious little friends!

Beading is a lot more fun UNDER the table! :)

Shabbos warmth at Gan

"The Shabbat angels are peeking through my window...."

 Delicious Challah every Friday!

Chanie spent A LOT of time helping Levi Yitzchak with his shoes.

Which voice will you listen to?

Fall Unit part two

At the beginning of the week we concluded our Fall unit by learning the different parts of a tree. We focused on Hashem's wonderous ways of creation:  How it starts with a little tiny seed, and then grows into a big beautiful tree.

This was a great opportunity to help the children connect to what they were learning. We personalized it by bridging the knowledge they have of how each of them started off, (as a tiny baby) and of the potential us humans each have, to grow and become so great!

Real nature items on the easel to help learn the vocabulary of the different parts of a tree.

Painting nature items

Getting paint into a pine cone now that takes concentration;)!

Levi creating a picture of roots

Two Voices

This week's Torah Portion, "Toldos" talks about the twins that were born to our forefather Yitzchok and his wife Rivkah.

Role playing with puppets, the children were able to learn the different personalities that each of these twins had. Yakov, a sweet boy who loved learning Torah and listening to Hashem. Esav, spent his time hunting animals and not involved in such kind acts.

We all have 'Eisav' moments where we make mistakes or want to do something not right. However, the Torah teaches that deep down we are all like Yakov!  We have a stronger voice that represents our what our "neshama" wants.  We need to bring out the 'yakov voice' and do the right thing!

During the week we brought out the "Yakov" puppet, to help us in different scenarios that the children were dealing with.

Elizabeth and Chanie role playing an Eisav and Yakov scenerio with the puppets.

How 'Living with the times' comes to life in our classroom:

(Living with the Torah portion)

Devorah Leah and Elizabeth both wanted the pink space on our davening parachute. This was a great learning opportunity for our classroom,  so we stopped and discussed what would Eisav do and what would Yakov do in this situation?

With great pride they role played 'Yakov's way.' Elizabeth got up and sat on the green space allowing Devorah Leah to have the pink. We all clapped for Elizabeth and her face shown as all the children's did. How powerful to know we each have a Yakov voice ready to come up and make the right choice.

Boys singing the tzitzis song in the middle of the parachute 

Aron told me he wanted to zoom off on his bike but that's what Eisav would do. So he decided to wait till shua caught up like Yakov.

While waiting on line Levi Yitzchak decided  to give out hugs ;)

We want to wish Morah Leah a happy birthday ! The children were very excited to create a book to show her their love!

Connecting with the world around us!

 

 Fall

What better way to learn about Hashem's beautiful nature during the fall season than to head OUTDOORS!

Learning how to walk safely on the sidewalk.

After deciding which tree to observe we sat in a circle around it and noticed the different changes that have been occurring.  The coloring of the leaves, empty branches etc.

We then took a closer look at all the beautiful colors the leaves were turning.

Devorah Leah always seems to wear outfits that connect to our topic ;)

She had a shirt with trees that were empty of leaves and it made us wonder when that might happen to these trees!

Caring for our tree.

Before heading back indoors we had a little snack to make a special Bracha (blessing) on our food under the tree.

Aron commented, " We also need to say thank you to the tree for the shade!"

Classroom Fall Center

Bringing some nature indoors was a great way for the children to re-visit and take a closer look.

Levi and Shua using magnifying glasses to look closer at a tree stump

Dividing pictures of the leaves on the floor was a way for the children to master math skills by finding out which has more or less, in addition to the skill of sorting.

Nature Art

Different color leaves taped to our easel board with matching markers was a fun invitation for the children to create their own nature pictures, with real inspiration of the outdoors.

Leaf rubbing on the table top.

By clean up time - it was fun to find all the leaves that were hiding under the butcher paper!

 

Negative space art

For the younger children we created images of bare trees with painters tape.
Using foil as a medium and fall color paint, it created a beautiful picture of a fall scene.

Devorah leah creating her own tree with pieces of tape.

Q-tip leaf art painting.

Muka making all the leaves falling down!