Gan Camarillo Preschool: 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.