Attitude of Gratitude

This week Pre-K focused on the upcoming American holiday Thanksgiving.

We learned the story of a king in England who did not let the Pilgrims talk to Hashem the way they wanted to. The Pilgrims decided to leave England and sailed across the sea to America. When they got there, they did not have enough food and winter was very cold and harsh. A lot of people died and they did not know how to plant food and keep warm in their new home.  Then they met the Native Americans, these were people that looked different than them and at first they were not so tolerant of them. 

Acting out the story with puppets.

But the Native Americans were kind and they taught the Pilgrims how to plant and hunt for food. When the next winter came the Pilgrims were ready for it and they planned a great feast to show how thankful they were that they could survive the winter. 

Now every year in America, people take a day to show how thankful they are for what they have. 

They make a feast and common foods are turkey, pumpkin pie, corn and cranberries.

We made a sequence of the order of the story.

Emma goes on a word writing hunt for some thanksgiving words .

Making a story bracelet. Each color helps us remember the story of Thanksgiving.

Doing a puzzle of America , where we live!

What does thankful mean for me?

Being thankful is a way of saying how we want to thank Hashem.

At first we explored this with specific ideas, each person chose a colorful sticker that corresponded to a specific thing they wanted to thank Hashem for (person,place food etc.)

We got some really sweet answers!

Spencer wanted to thank Hashem for Mendel

While Mina wanted to thank Hashem for Uncle Baruch!

To really internalize this message, each child got to play this game individually with colorful cereal!

Modeh Ani is a special bracha we say every morning that thanks Hashem for giving us our neshama (soul) everyday!

Hard at work at creating our thanksgiving centerpieces!

Creating tie-dye leaves and gathering sticks

 beading our thankful leaves

Pumpkin Exploration:

Sensory play cleaning our pumpkins.

Testing the thickness of a pumpkin shell.

Using real tools, teach us how to be safe and responsible.

Exploring the insides of a pumpkin,

Mixing in some oil so we can roast the pumpkin seeds and have a delicious snack!

Some friends enjoyed them, but others didn't.

Many people eat turkey by their thanksgiving meal.

gluing the right number of feathers for their turkey

Sweet friends playing a rhyming matching game!

Kindergarten Monthly Update #1

The Living Letters - Hebrew Alef Bais 

At Gan Camarillo, we follow the chassidic instruction to teach the children the names and kaballistic meaning behind each of the holy letters of the Alef Beis. The Rebbe teaches that each letter is holy, and through the children learning the name of each letter PRIOR to blending and reading, we cultivate a special "Yiras shomayim" (fear of heaven) in the hearts and minds of our students.

With this in mind, the children have just completed learning each of the names of the letters. Here we share with you a peek into some of the ways it was introduced to the children.

Clay figures reflecting the shape and message of the letter.

The letter Ches. The Ches is a Chupah, a wedding canopy. We have the bride, groom and Hashem in their marriage. 

The letter Lamed is a teacher teaching a student. When you learn something new you can teach it to someone else that doesn't know. Then you become a teacher!

                                                  

The letter Ayin is an eye. Every time we do something our eyes takes a picture and stores it in our brain. The letter Ayin reminds us to do good things so our brain will be full of good pictures.

                                                             

The children were invited to create their own shapes!  They loved creating, and felt full of pride when they see what they made and this is exactly what we want them to feel!!

Working in Pairs:

Each pair had to build and represent the secret story of their letter. 

Peek A Boo Alef Bais. 

We played a game to help us remember the differences of letters. Guess until you see the full letter. 

What's the difference between a צ and a ץ?

Next week we will begin the Capit Hebrew reading program which will help the children blend the letters to become fluent hebrew readers!

STEM Bins 

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

These bins are a new addition to our class this year. Each bin has a different material, for example; magnetic tiles, lego, wooden blocks, domino's, popsicle sticks, straws and many more...

The children use these materials to build their task. We added this to our class to give our children more constructive time to express their creativity and problem solving.

The STEM bins are a tool that can be used in all subjects.

Here we are using it for our Hebrew letters. 

Each letter has a secret story and a deeper meaning to the shape and name of the letter. We have a demo set of the letters that are made of clay. 

Another addition to our class is woodworking! 

Yes real tools and real wood!! When I brought out the wood and the tools they knew exactly what to do. When it was time to put it away the children did not want to stop.

Here are some of our friends exploring and trying to create different things. We are planning on making some cool projects this year.

                                   

English Language Arts

We are almost done learning the sounds of each letter. We also started arranging combinations of 3-4 letters to spell a word!

     

The goal is for the children to understand that writing is fun and is an amazing way to express and share their thoughts and feelings.

I try to make it real, funny and interesting for our children.

We are thankful and grateful 

 

This time the exercise was in honor of Thanksgiving. The children were asked, " If you had to pick one sense, what do you think is the most important one from all five and why do you think it's the most important one?"

Faiga wrote: I am thankful for my eyes. I think my sight is the most important sense because if I can not see I will not be able to drive.

Sight words

To help the children master sight words, we have a sight word wall in our classroom! We play different games to help us remember the words. Bela Riva and Dovi are searching for the right word.

The children that already know how to read are reading books to our friends and Morahs.

Math

We are so lucky to have Montessori math materials in our classroom. These materials give the children a hands on math experience of sorting, stacking, and manipulating. The visual and manipulative component helps the children master the foundations of math in a more effective way!

 

The golden bead material is building numbers into the thousands.
For example a single golden bead represents 1, a group of 10 beads are strung together in a straight line for 10, and 100 beads are affixed into a flat square. The thousand cube is as large as 1,000 of the original single ‘1’ bead.
Dovi was so excited when he understood that 2 cubes are 2000 and 3 cubes make 3000 beads.

Learning math in our class is a self directed process where each child in their own level can gain a sense of independence and confidence.

         

Science

Our children did an experiment with Mrs. G.
The children were invited to hypothesize (predict) what might be the outcome of the experiment.

Each child was given 2 ice cubes. The experiment was to see how fast ice melts, and what might affect the speed it melts.
They were invited to put one ice cube in the shade and one in the sun.

Which one melted faster?
The children wrote down their answers!

What is a Shliach?

Torah portion of Chayei Sara / The Life of  Sara 

After Sara passed away at the age of 127 years, Avraham bought Maharas Hamachpela in Chevron and buried Sara there. 

This Shabbos there are thousands of people that spend Shabbos Davening in Meoras Hamachpela (the cave/resting place of the Jewish Mothers and fathers) in honor of Sara Imeinu (sarah the matriarch).

Mendel S. told us that he visited Chevron when he was in Eretz Yisroel.

Yitzchak was ready to get married. It was Avraham's job to find him a wife. Avraham couldn't travel to Charan so he made Eliezer into a special "Shliach" (messenger) for the important mission, to find a wife for Yitzchak.

Eliezer traveled with some gifts of jewelry for the Kallah (bride). He had with him 10 camel's. Did you know Camels can drink up to 30 gallons of water a day, that's a lot of water!!

Avraham gave Eliezer everything he needed to do his “Shlichus” (mission) . We are all Hashem’s Shluchim (messengers) to bring Moshiach, so surely Hashem gives us all the energy we need to do the Shlichus and bring Moshiach now!


When Eliezer arrived by the well at Charan he noticed something special about Rivkah. The water came right up to her, the rest of the girls had to reach down.

Emma is working on making her well.

Rivkah gave water to Eliezer and offered water to Eliezer's camels. That was when Eliezer knew the she is the right wife for Yitzchok.
Transferring the water from one bowl to another is fun.

The three miracles that Sara had in her tent when she was alive came back when Yitzchak and Rivkah got married. Her Shabbat candles lit for the whole week, her challa was always enough no matter how many people came and Hashem rested above her tent.

As soon as a young girl can understand the significance of candle lighting (around age 3) she should be like Rivka Imeinu and light her own Shabbos candle. Girls light before their mothers. Young girls actually get to be the first to light Shabbos candles and bring in Shabbos (mothers light afterward in case they need to help their daughters).

Lighting Shabbos candles brings light into the world, both spiritual and physical light. Sara and Rivka's Shabbos candles stayed lit the whole week - which added light the entire week. So too, when we light Shabbos candles, we bring in a special (spiritual) light for the whole week!

We got to play Alef Bais bingo with the whole class. Our friends paired up and worked beautifully together.

In honor of Chaf Cheshvan the birthday of the Rebbe Rashab, Rabbi Lang came to farbreng with us.

Happy 5th Birthday to Spencer!!!

We are so grateful to have you in our class!

Kabbalah of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, the Torah way!

With Thanksgiving coming up, we took this opportunity to explore being thankful and appreciating how everything is from Hashem!

At circle time we invited our friends to come up and draw what they want to thank Hashem for.

Mina- "For my mommy."

Chana Rochel - "Getting to kiss my mommy."

Sholom- "Helping my mom in the morning."

Yanky- "Everything!"

Adelle- " My friends."

Shmuel- "The food I eat."

Definitely added so much energy to our davening songs when we sang 'Modeh ani'!

A special Chassidic day connects to our theme.

This week we celebrated the 20th of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan which is the birthday of the 5th chabad leader, the Rebbe Rashab.

The Rebbe Rashab taught us the importance of learning Chassidus- the deep yet practical gems of the holy Torah. Chassidus (Which is Kabbalah) are a big part of our 'big ideas' in our class's curriculum.

For example this week when talking about how thankful we are to Hashem, we pointed out how Hashem is everywhere!- Not just in heaven or in a holy place but in us and in everything.

We had fun pointing to where Hashem is and gave extra Tzedaka in honor of the special day.

This fit in beautifully with our theme as we THANKED Hashem for creating us and being around us at all times.

Sholom drawing himself as we talked about 'self love'. You are so special Hashem made you!

This week we worked on saying "Thank you" and "No thank you"

Menachem said a big thank you to Chana Rochel who was giving him a ride.

We played a game to give us more opportunity to practice our manners.

Different types of foods were presented on different plates. When a friend offered a certain food to another they can reply with "Thank you " or " no thank you".

Personal private time.

Davening is a gift for us to take the time to stop and think, talk to Hashem.

Before one davening circle each child was invited to draw what they wanted to communicate to Hashem. 

Adelle "Thank you Hashem for shoes and boots." Eitan "Chavarim-friends!"

 Using our mini siddurim to daven to Hashem was so special to watch precious children talk to Hashem.

Tzedaka time is a great opportunity to thank Hashem for what we have and thinking of others who don't.

Bringing the rain in ;)

Using different mediums to create "rain".