Sweet twist on a 'Happy new year'!

"May you have a SWEET NEW YEAR!"

The phrase we hear and say again and again in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah- the Jewish New Year.

We wanted to make this meaningful and practical for our class.

Children relate to puppets. We role played different scenarios of friends being nice to each other. 

We used the word SWEET to describe the kind ACTIONS that the children do!

SWEET = Mitzvah's! 

Mitzvah's make us happy and Hashem happy too!

We want a year filled with many sweet Mitzvahs! A year filled with those happy feelings, like when someone does something sweet to us and us to others.

Now it was time to take the tradition of dipping apple or Challah into sweet honey and connect it to this theme!

Each child tasting a little bit of honey.

Each time a child did a 'SWEET' action they used dry erase markers to draw it on our board and simultaneously receive a lick of honey! Sweet =  Mitzvah =  honey!!

Enjoy the SWEET MOMENTS!

Elizabeth and Dovi helped each other trace their hands on paper. They did it again on our Sweet Jar to show their friends what they did.

Devorah Leah helped Mimi get a paper towel after washing her hands!

Muka and Faiga helped each other clean up our classroom!

 Max and Dovi noticed a friend spilled the pennies from our tzedaka box, they quickly jumped on the opportunity and helped clean it all up!!

Bee inspired play dough

 Rosh Hashanah projects
The children cant wait to bring home their Honey jar for Rosh Hashanah!

Bee Beading

We placed yellow and black beads with pictures of bees taped onto the table.

How do bees make honey?

One of our centers helped the children learn how nectar is sucked out of the flower and brought to their bee hive. It was a great fine motor experience and hand eye coordination getting just enough of the yellow liquid in their little compartments.

Apple Art

Motty painting an apple using inspiration from a picture of an apple. He then later wanted to create the same picture using a different medium.

At snack time we discussed why we eat a Rimon- pomegranate on Rosh Hashanah. There are MANY seeds in a pomegranate, which represents the MANY mitzvah's that we want our year filled with.

Friendships and sweet moments

Enjoying some water in our sensory bin on the hot sunny days!

How can a parent's love for their child teach them about G-d?

Rosh Hashanah

Our Big idea

  Hashem (G-d) loves us and protects us just like a parent.

Rosh Hashanah is the time that we ask Hashem to be our King again. He is also like our father! He loves us, reassures us and protects us!

 How can we bring this message home to our 2-4 year olds?

To help the children understand Hashem's love, we made the connection between the love they feel from their real mother and father, to the love Hashem has for each of us.

Each parent sent in a 'love video' to their child.  

 Their reactions were precious! Some of them were talking back to the video "I love you too mommy"

 

 Throughout the day we got some requests to replay their parents love video, understandably :)

 Draw your feelings

We placed pictures of their parents on the table with paper and markers. It was up to them what they wanted to document. Some made a picture of their parents, some children drew what they like to do with their parents. This was a great way to invite the children to verbalize with others the love they have with their parents. 

Baby center

Diapers, babies, band aids were placed in the dramatic center as an invitation to role play how much care a parent has for us as children.

A cry of a shofar

Now it was time to connect it to Rosh Hashanah! What happens when a child cries out? 

What does the parent do? After a couple of days of talking about our parents they knew just what to answer! A parent listens to the cry and figures out what they need.

We played the shofar and asked what does it sound like? " A cry!" 

What will Hashem do as our 'parent'?? "listen to us! He loves us"

Baby Chana Rochel helped act this out.

We role played how to respond to a friend crying. We talked about how we need to listen to another persons needs and show them our love. Max doing what he does best and trying to make his friend laugh. Rozie gave Motty a big hug to make him feel better. 

Shofar Audio center

 We would like to wish a Mazel Tov to Rozie for turning 3 

and Levi for turning 4!!

Good Shabbos!

Engaging all of our Senses at Gan!

Learning is Multi- Sensory

Studies have shown that we rely heavily on our senses to process information. Engaging more than one sense can dramatically heighten the processing of a new concept or experience. 

Using multiple senses allows more cognitive connections and associations to be made with a concept. This means it is more easily accessible to our students as there are more ways the information can be triggered and retrieved.

Every person has different learning styles, so to successfully reach all of our students, we create as many sensory experiences as possible.

Sensory Center

During circle time we spoke about the fact Hashem gave us different senses to help us discover the world around us.

Touch: Inside balloons we placed different small items. The children had to match what they thought was inside to the correct picture. (Rice, flour, salt, marbles and barley)

Smell: Empty spice containers was a fun way for the children to use their nose and smell all kinds of different aromas. Motty said about the Oregano "It smells like sauce".

Hearing: Each small container contained  different items that produced a different sound. Since the bottles were covered, the children had to rely on their ears to hear the differences.

Sight: We placed different liquids and visual effects into clear bottles. Some children found this so calming and relaxing to watch.

All these fun sensory activities are left in our Sensory center for children to revisit them and explore!

 

Cornstarch Sensory table

Cornstarch and water create such a fun experience. While touching it with force it feels solid however when its lifted up it melts and liquefies.

Each child experiences this differently and we love observing their reactions.

Rozie "It feels like cheese pasta"

Mimi was unsure at first, then felt really proud when she got her hands in :)

Group art

There is nothing like sticking your hands in paint and creating a master piece together with friends!

Friends

Placing aluminum foil on the table  creates a different effect and experience.

What does our bearded dragon feel like?
Our class loves when we take out our pets to be fed and say hello.

Sensory Garden!
This year our garden (Thank you Mrs Doyle) has been divided to engage our different senses.

Touch- Different interesting plant textures. Max felt this spiral plant "It doesn't feel real"

Taste: Levi enjoying the mint that is growing.
There are other plants in the process of growing that will be fun to watch grow and taste!

Sight: Vibrant color plants got the children talking about the different beautiful colors they saw.
Dovi "This looks like a watermelon!" (was a fig)

smell: Yehudis found peppermint. Devorah Leah smelling the Lavender and Menachem discovering the rosemary!

Hearing:  These plants will grow quite big and create a sound when the wind blows through them!

We observed Levi Yitzchak listening the plant and said it was singing. Sweet moments.

Learning about responsibility and taking care of our garden.

Gross motor skills fun!