Parshat Vayechi: A Handful of Blessings

This week's Parsha is the last  in Sefer Bereishis. 

Before Yakov passed away he calls his sons to bless them. Yosef brought Menashe and Efrayim with him to get a blessing by his father. Menashe was the oldest son and Efrayim was the youngest son. 

Yosef brought them close to his father. He put Menashe on the right and Efrayim on the left so Yakov can reach them easily. Yakov switched his hands and stretched his right hand over Efrayim, the younger one, and his left hand over Menashe, the older son.

Yosef thought his father got confused, but Yakov told him: Menashe your older son is going to become great but Efrayim will become even greater.

In this picture Evan is playing Yakov, Yisroel is Menashe and Mendel is Efrayim. 

 To help the children learn to differentiate between their right and left side, we tied a blue Ribbon on the right hand and a red ribbon on the left hand. 

Yakov then called all of his sons to tell them when Moshiach will come, but suddenly Hashem made him forget so he blessed them instead. In class we asked the children why do you think Hashem made him forget? Motty said: "Moshiach is a very big surprise".

After Yakov passed away the son's buried him in Me'aras Hamachpela, in Eretz Yisroel. 

Towards the end of the Parsha Yosef passed away. Yosef asked his brothers before he passed away to bury him in Mitzrayim and when Hashem pulls us out of Mitzrayim the YIDDEN should take him out with them.

Aleph Beis 

This week we learned the letters Shin ש and Sin ש. The difference between them is the dot. In this picture the children are showing the letter Shin by lifting their right hand to show the dot on the right.

Here the children are showing the letter Sin by lifting their left hand to show the dot on the left.

We love it when our mommies come and play with us in school!

Motty's mommy joined us for a game of Aleph Beis Spot-It.

"I can not believe it, am I reading!"

We finished learning the sounds and now we are working on blending words together.

Bela Riva first read the sounds separately then she glued the sounds together to make a word.    

Saige is looking for the correct letters to spell the words she found.

Rozie is working so nicely on her workbook.

 Figuring out the beginning sound of a word can be a lot of fun!

What's the Matter: Solids, Liquids and Gases

 The scientists in the Mitzvah Mentchie classroom discovered the 3 types of matter this week. 

A solid has a shape by itself, a liquid takes the shape of the container that it's in, and a gas has no shape and is hard to see.

Motty uses a funnel to pour vinegar into a bottle. After Yisroel combined that with baking soda, they created a gas reaction that blew up the balloon.

Bela Riva and Morah Davina work as a team
to sort the matter pictures into different categories.

                             

Aleph Beis Adventures: Yud

Connecting with our parsha this week, we explored the letter Yud using our Yadayim (hands).

Fayga colors her inflated "Yad" and had a lot of fun squishing and playing with it.

Mendel uses his pincher fingers and circles the Aleph-beis letters

 he hears the Morah say.

We like to review as we go along in Tk!

J is for Jewels

Evan strings beads to make a bracelet for his dad :)

The beads we used were a bit smaller and trickier to get on, requiring some intense focus and hand-eye coordination, but he persevered and was triumphant. 

*PSA:we are unsure if the jewelry made it home *

First we estimated how many Jewels it would take to fill the container.

Below Faiga adds a jewel to the pill bottle.

As we passed around the containers the numbers got higher and higher.

The answer's really surprised us!

Mining for Jewels was a great sensory tie-in.

Menachem the geologist used a magnifying glass to examine the stone, and a sieve to sift away the surrounding sand.

Caution:Writer at Work: Do Not Disturb

Shhhhhh! This is a library.

A sweet Shabbos party moment.

Learning NOT to share...

It's that time of year again when we see some sniffles and children absent from being under the weather. We took this opportunity to learn about germs and how to make sure we don't share bad germs.

The Coughing Kangaroo

Thank you Sholom's mommy for donating a soft and brand new Kangaroo and a little baby in its pouch. This became our new friend and we called it the coughing Kangaroo. 

Our Kangaroo started coughing and with its arms we demonstrated how to properly cover our cough so not to spread germs.

Esther and Mina had fun re-enacting our puppet show.

The little baby kangaroo had a sniffle and Chana Rochel helped to catch its sneeze in a tissue.

Adelle role modeling how to use her tissue properly and quickly put it in the trash when she was done.

 Glitter and Germs

Hard to teach little children how germs spread when we can't see it with our naked eye.

We brought glitter to the circle time to get a visual how this process takes place.

Mendel got some glitter on his hands we invited Yanky to come up and shake hands with him.

Yanky looked at his hands and saw some glitter from Mendel!

 Esther came up to say hello to Yanky and she got glitter on her hands now! The children were getting the idea pretty quickly out germs spread when we touch others! 

We all have germs but we need to make sure to keep the bad germs away. 

 Chana Rochel and Sholom using blow art to create their germ pictures.

 Esther trying to create her version of what a germ would look like. We placed some printed pictures of real germs to inspire their creative minds.

 This was a pretty neat representation of a germ!

Ice hands and markers was an invitation for our friends to color and create their own germs and wash it away with water droppers.

 Germ experiment

We wanted to teach the children how soap is our best friend when it comes to getting the bad germs away.

We sprinkled black pepper in water as the 'germs'. The children got to dip their finger in soap as soon as they touched the black pepper it created a reaction and spread to the ends of the plate. The little 'germs' were running away! This helped the children visualize what happens when we wash our hands with soap.

Emma singing the washing song to make sure she got all the germs off her hands.

Making sure the paper towel goes into the garbage.

"Washing hands"  by the art easel with a picture of faucet and blue markers. Mina tracing her hand.

Painting bubble wrap was a fun way to make the soap bubbles on our clean hand.

 Adele working on our dirty and germy hand.

 Germ books and pictures started great conversations amongst friends.

When we can't take dolls outside to play, they can always watch us from the window!

Parshat Vayigash: The Journey to Mitzrayim

The Journey to Mitzrayim

In this weeks Parsha we learn about the journey of the B'nei Yisroel going down to Mitzrayim (Egypt). 

When Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, the brothers were embarrassed. 

Yosef right away asked, "Is my father alive"?

The brothers answered, "Yes!"

Yosef told his brothers that he forgives them for throwing him in the pit and that it was really Hashem's will so he can provide food for his family.

Yosef asked the brothers to bring back his father and the whole family to live in Mitzrayim. Yosef said that he would take care of the family and they would live in Goshen the most beautiful place in Mitzrayim. 

Serach the daughter of Asher played the harp for Yakov. That is how she gave over the exciting news about Yosef to Yakov, in a very gentle way.

Yakov was so happy about the news but he didn't want to leave Eretz Yisroel. Yakov had a dream and Hashem came to him and told him not to be afraid of going to Mitzrayim, because in Mitzrayim the B'nei Yisroel will grow and become a big nation. Hashem sent us to Mitzrayim/Galus in order to take us out of Mitzrayim/Galus. 

Aleph Beis

This week we had a lot of fun learning and practicing the Aleph beis.

Each child got to be a mini Morah by showing a card with a letter on it and their friend got to say the name of that letter and spell it in different ways. 

Motty is doing a great job being the mini Morah! Bela Riva is using buttons to make the letter ט Tes and Yisroel is using clay to make the letter ג Gimel.

Dovi is the mini Morah and Yisroel is writing the letter פ Pey in shaving cream.

Malka is holding the card so nicely for Rozie to write the letter נ Nun in salt and Dovi is using clay to make the letter ה Hey.

 Writing In English  

This week we started learning the rules and how to write a sentence. 

Bela Riva is trying her best and she did it! 

Reading and relaxation in the library after lunch. 

Thank you Morah Davinah for going to the library and picking out the best books ever!

Early literacy puzzles combine pictures and words,

 so eager learners can practice "gluing together sounds"

On their own Motty, Yisroel and Dovi separated all the puzzles into different categories: animals, cars, food, other things. They then played a game that one friend picks a picture from the puzzles and they all need to act it out.

Shapes 

Our class loves learning shapes. When it's time to put away the workbooks the children do not want to stop. This week we discovered that a pentagon has 5 sides and 5 corners.  

Dovi and Yisroel worked very hard on building this house but when it was time to clean up they worked just as hard on cleaning it up! We are so proud.

Exercising with our stress balls, 

gives us a great transition to our next activity.

Aleph Beis Adventures:ט

This week we are focusing on the letter "tes" through the medium of a taleh- טלה

(lamb).

Our miniature טלה are searching in their field for their favorite type of aleph-beis letter.

Menachem uses a dot marker to color all of the sections with a "tes" in it

to reveal the hidden picture.

I is for Ice/ Ice cream

We explored with Ice in this freezing cold sensory table, but for some reason it kept disappearing! Mendel noticed that when we put ice and water in the funnel, only the water went through, but the ice got stuck.

 Using a foam bead putty to make an ice cream cone

Mendel fine tunes his fine motor skills and follows the pattern to make a 3-d I. 

Tk was inspired to draw our own patterns to follow afterwards.

Using sensory fluffy paint to paint ice cream.

This was so much fun to swoosh and explore with.

 The excitement lasted through the whole day!

Menachem uses a wet paintbrush to trace over the letters of his name.

He needed to use his whole body to focus and move to each new letter.