Friday, June 15, 2018

Kindergarten Graduation!

Growing and moving can be bitter sweet. 

The sweetness is all the accomplishments. The bitterness is moving away...saying good-bye.

As a way to celebrate this milestone of concluding a year of Kindergarten, we chose to share the moments of sweetness with you. Fourteen centers for parent and child to celebrate together. To celebrate the skills and accomplishments gained this year.

A big thank you to Morah Davina for putting the Mitzvah note/ photo book together! The song the children sang was put together by Morah Davina. She wrote the words and prepare the children with the motions!!!











































Friday, June 8, 2018

Parshas Shelach: Learning our Lesson

Parshat Shelach: Learning Our Lesson

In this week's Parsha we learned that the Bnei Yisroel were so close to entering Eretz Yisroel. Right before entering, the Bnei Yisroel asked Moshe Rabeinu to send spies, Meraglim, to look at the land.

In class we posed example, " If you invited guests over for Shabbat lunch and the guests send over spies to your house to check if you are making good food. How would that make you feel? The children said that they would probably not like that and that its not a nice thing to do.

We learned that in life we can go through an experience together with someone but have completely different reactions. We don't all like the same foods, colors, shapes and clothing. We created an experience / game in class called "the bear hunt". While playing the game the children were asked to think in a positive way when the Morah was thinking in a not positive way. You won't believe it, the children won!


This is exactly what happened with the Meraglim, the spies. 10 out of 12 Meraglim were scared to conquer Eretz Yisroel because there were giants living there, but the rest of the Meraglim had Emuna, faith, that Hashem that will help them.

Positive Change

As the year is coming to an end, the Morah's want to share that the progress and the accomplishments these children have achieved are tremendous! We are so proud. We discussed how things come to an end and how new things begin. This change is bittersweet. We brought caterpillars into our classroom. The children watched the caterpillars turn into chrysalises, into something new and different. Watching this process was very interesting and exciting.

Morah Avigayil asked the children: "Is change a good thing or a bad thing?"

Muka answered: "It depends on the development of a person if a person makes a good choice to grow or change in a good way, in the right way, that would be a good growth. But if a person chooses to grow or change in the wrong way that would be a bad growth.
Wow, we all agreed!

Birkat Hamazon from our Bentchers


Lessons From Toothpaste

Morah Avigayil showed us a toothpaste tube. 
We took turns guessing what we were going to use it for.

The Morah asked us to squeeze it all out!
It was so fun!
Next they were asked to try to put it back in, it was really hard.
Devorah Leah tried with her hands, and Levi Yitzchak tried with a straw,
but it wasn't working out.



Eventually we all gave up!
"It's impossible!" Muka exclaimed, and everyone agreed.
Malka decided to just play with her toothpaste.
Now Morah Avigail told us the lesson.
Words are very powerful, just like toothpaste they are easy to squirt out, but they are not easy to put them back inside.
Levi Yitzchak agreed "we can't put the toothpaste back inside."
Menucha explained, "If you say something mean, it could break someone's heart, not into pieces, but inside her because she was sad."
Toothpaste is impossible to put back, but even though our words can hurt, we can fix the mistake! We are always able to do something to fix our words, whether its saying sorry, doing something for your friend, or drawing them a picture.
Having Ahavas Yisroel is so important.
We use toothpaste reminders in our class now.
Make sure that you are not squirting out the wrong words!!

Max has Ahavas Yisroel and helps Adele with her shoes.


Math and English

Levi Yitzchak figured out that the capital letter goes in the beginning and the period at the end, 
Elizabeth worked with him to place the rest of the words.

Menucha helps Morah Avigayil put the numbers from least to greatest.



Elizabeth created her own drum set at recess.
Everyone enjoyed hearing her play, and she even let some of the younger kids
take turns after her.

Happy Birthday Max!
Max and his Mommy brought yummy mine craft cupcakes to share for his 6th birthday.


He and his mommy shared with us some funny stories and how he was born!


We love you Max!! May you go from strength to strength in every area of your life! <3 Morah Avigail and Morah Davina


Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Reflecting on a whole year in one week!


As the year is coming to an end, we wanted to reflect and review some of the 'big ideas' we learned throughout the year. 

Rosh Hashanah


"Have a SWEET new year" What does that mean? How can you be sweet? 
To help the children learn this concept while learning about Rosh Hashanah, we let the children taste a bit of honey after doing something sweet to a friend.
This help them learn the concept of why we eat honey on Rosh Hashanah.
They remembered this concept right away, as soon as they saw the honey by circle time. 
We have been using the words "Be sweet" all year.

Dovi helped his friends by the sink and got to taste some honey!
It has been a very sweet year!


 Faiga told us how she can be sweet to her friends at school.
Batya helped her friend by putting back her Torah.



Yom Kippur

What happens when we make a mistake? How can we fix it? Hannah, Rozie and Saige making each other feel better when  feelings were getting hurt.
They started to sing one of our Yom Kippur songs they remembered :
🎵"Oops I'm sorry, oops I'm sorry, what did I do? I didn't mean to hurt you, I want to make it better. I made a mistake I'll fix my mistake!"🎵

 Twins Yakov and Esav

 It is fascinating to see how well their visual memory is.
During circle time we took out the Esav puppet and immediately they remembered when we learned about the twins in the Torah. Yakov made good choices and loved Hashem and the Torah. His twin Esav we learn what not to do from his not good choices.

 Tu B'shvat

Our Mitzvahs are like fruits from a tree, so sweet for Hashem.
Moshe placing his mitzvah note on our tree that we brought to circle time.

 Chanuka

"What is a Menorah doing out?" "Is it Chanukah?" 
We placed different chanuka centers one morning to remind us what we learned during Chanuka.
Our main big idea was how to be a 'Macabee'. How we can be brave by standing up for what's right.
We also overheard conversations about Hashem's home, the Beis Hamikdash. 


Mina and Evan playing with the felt Chanuka story.

 Pesach

One of the big ideas from Pesach we learned from the Jewish people's leader, Moshe. He cared so much about the Jewish people and we role modeled this in our classroom as well. 
Rozie cared so much about her friend when she gave up her seat she really wanted!

Art and science


We placed tin foil on our table and invited the children to paint. After having some fun we let the children try to mix different things inside the paint to see what would happen.
Dovi mixing shaving cream in his paint. "The red paint is becoming pink!"
Batya mixing the different colors together with the shaving cream.


 Motty tried the baby oil.  "This smells like my baby and wipes!"
Bela Riva experimenting mixing shampoo in her paint. It was very watery, and she figured out by adding shaving cream it would thicken.

 Using creativity 

It is so much fun watching the children discover their own creative ideas.
Shayna could not find a cup to mix her paint, so she used the shaving cream cover to improvise.
Mendel was quite excited to discover he can draw a picture in his paint.

 



Elizabeth from Kindergarten making a show for our friends with pot drums.


Magnet fun with a magnet wand, paper clips and pipe cleaners.
Motty creatively figured out how to easily clean up the mess!


Mazel Tov Mendel Paller on his Arienfernisht!
(Formal introduction to Jewish education marking Torah and the Alef Beis sweet)




We are getting really excited for next weeks end of year celebration! 
Practicing our songs three children at a time was a great way to make sure they all felt heard and knew the songs!


Working hard on their mini memory books.