Stars and Stripes

 

With many children hearing their parents talk about the presidential elections at home, we thought it would be a good idea for us to help the children understand what voting means and why it's so important.

 In conjunction with this weeks Torah portion Lech Lecha;

We talked about fairness, how to problem solve, and how voting can help us make decisions.

Mendel traced the route Avram traveled on wax paper.

Making sheep puppets to act out the story.

When Avram and Sarai were traveling with their nephew Lot, their shepherds started to fight. Avram realized he needed to separate himself from lot, but he wanted to do it in a fair way, where Lot would not get offended. 

So he gave Lot the choice, do you want to travel left, and I will go right. 

Or do you prefer to move to the right and I will go left?

That way Lot would have a choice, and not feel insulted.

In America, when Mommies and Daddies vote, they vote for who gets to make decisions for our country- the President.

Getting our Poll Center ready.

Mina acted as the poll worker and showed her friends how to register to vote.

Voting is done in private, and you don't need to tell anyone who you voted for.

Once you've chosen the option on your ballot, it goes into the ballot box.

Counting up our ballots was an exciting process. The children were able to experience the excitement that adults feel on Election night!

Even when the book some kids wanted wasn't chosen, nobody protested, because they felt it was fair.

We noticed the colors red, white and blue a lot in our voting center. 

Those are the colors of the American flag! The stars show how many states there are in America.

We painted the American flag. Some friends chose to use a paintbrush, while others enjoyed the sensory experience with their fingers.

Election Fine Motor and Numbers

Batya finds words to write from "Curious George Goes to Vote"

In this weeks Parsha, Avram and Sarai became the first Jewish people!

Hashem promised them their descendants would be like the stars in the sky!

Moshe and Yanky sort the Aleph Beis stars.

Creating textured water color stars.

Kindergarten English and Math

Math

This month we learned how to make groups of ten. 

We learned this by using different manipulatives as concrete examples .

Bristle blocks is a great visual to group ten since they can build a stack.

Mendel, double checking his work by counting what he built.

Mina, making a bundle of ten straws.

Tooth picks was another fun way we invited our friends to make multiple bundles of ten. Using small ponytails was a challenging way to use our fine motor skills to wrap these small items together.

 Q-tip scavenger hunt to make bundles of ten.

Abstract to concrete  

Once we got good practice making groups of ten, it was now time to introduce a higher number and count how many tens and how many ones left over to figure out the sum total.

The orange pipe cleaner was used to make the bundle of ten and the yellow one was for the group of beads that would be the ones.

Our friends wrote down the number they created. The abstract math skill was now becoming very concrete using this method of building, creating, then writing the number.

Friends were invited up to create a group of ten on the white board, and count the ones left over. Transferring the concrete number to the written number is an important exercise to help the children understand the value of the written number.

Practicing writing our numbers.

English

We have officially begun the Capit Reading Program!

CAPIT Reading is an explicit and systematic Phonics Curriculum covering the foundational skills necessary for fluent reading and accurate spelling. What is unique about Capit, is that in addition to the teacher offering in person introduction to the sounds of each letter, the children must demonstrate their understanding of the sounds they have learned through an app on an Ipad.

The curriculum is designed to not allow the child to move forward in the curriculum without displaying a complete knowledge of the sounds that have already been introduced. Each step of the curriculum builds on the previous step, ensuring no child falls behind!

The app's assistance in picking up the child's understanding of each sound is critical for a child to progress in blending words and succeeding in their reading. 

Research and experience indicate that Visual Mnemonics are an efficient and fun method of helping students remember the relationship between the sound of a letter and its visual representation. CAPIT Reading provides unique Visual Mnemonics for every letter in the English language.

We invite you to get a glimpse of the fun ;)

 

Moshe learning the image the letter O looks like. We are constantly asking our friends when they are unsure of what a letter is, "what does it look like?" This helps them remember and retain the sound.

Mina practicing how to write a k. The order of the arrows encourages them to learn how to properly make a letter. Once they do it correctly three times their letter comes to life with movement and music.

Mendel, using his artistic abilities to make his letter. 

Mendel P already putting together words by sounding out where the letters go. Its a self correcting way to learn how to spell since if its the wrong letter it bounces right out!

Takes a lot of concentration!

Before using the I-pads each day, the Capit curriculum begins with group frontal teaching, introducing the sounds. We play match it games and do some of the phonics together to help review and practice as a group.

 

Animal fun

After learning all about Noach and the animals we decided to spend one more week having fun and learning about Hashem's animals.

At circle time our friends made puppet animals come to life.

Milking a cow!

What better way to learn where milk and cheese comes from than finding a hands on way how to milk a cow.

We filled a glove 'udder' with a milk like substance attached to a picture of a cow. 

Chana and Shua squeezing the udder and trying to get the milk in the  milk container, it took lots of concentration.

After watching a video how to milk a cow we saw a baby cow drink from its mother too. Menucha, brought a toy cow to drink from the mommy cow. 

Animals in the paint! Chana, making zebra foot prints.

Menachem, changing his color sheep to brown.

We noticed Ben bringing the paint plate to the sink when he was done for it to be washed!

Playing with sticky sheep. Using contact paper our friends were able to decorate and re-decorate  a soft sheep.

Instead of just throwing out the tape that was used for our sheep activity, we used it to 'trap' some animals. We watched our friends figure out how to release them it was quite tricky with the layers of tape.

Menachem practicing his cutting skills while making a lions mane.

Animals in our sensory table with kinetic sand.

We have an animal pet bearded dragon right in our classroom! This week, we took the opportunity to learn more about the care he needs.

Noticing where he likes to sit, under the warm heat lamp. Bearded dragons love the warm weather.

Feeding him the foods he likes, apples, kale, worms. Menucha, using a tweezer to help feed him.

Ben, learning how to be gentle when petting him, using two fingers.

Shua putting on an animal show for our bearded dragon.

Animal yoga!

 

Hashem's Rainbow

 

This week we learned the story of Noach and the flood!

The people in the world at that time were not behaving nicely, they were making bad choices.

Hashem told Noach to build a "Teiva" for the people who were making good choices, and for the animals too!

It took Noach 120 years to build the Teiva (Ark) because Hashem wanted the people to notice, and ask Noach why he was building it, and give them a chance to do Teshuva (repent/change their bad ways). 

Shmuel puts his trash on the bottom level of our model "teiva."

The children were invited to build waterproof boats out of foil to carry the animals.

Sink or float experiments.

Meir counts and covers the tally marks with rain drops.

Arik and Mina untangle the rubberbands and free the animals.

Moshe told us that Cheetah's are non-kosher, therefore only one pair went on the Teiva.

On the Teiva Hashem made a special miracle that all the animals got along!

First the rain was gentle, because Hashem wanted the people to do Teshuva, then it became hard and strong. We illustrated the rain with instruments.

Once the waters had dried up, Hashem shower the world a rainbow! The rainbow was Hashem's promise that He will never send a Mabul (flood) again. Mina drips the colorful paint in the shaving cream.

color mixing rainbows.

We also want to promise Hashem that we can do mitzvos and make the world bright and colorful.

Mina tells Morah Rachel different kinds of mitzvos she can do.

Science

We began a long term observation /experiment in our classroom this week! Using an incubator  - we will observe the process of baby chicks being born!

Putting the eggs into the incubator. 

We hope we will have more to report in the coming weeks!

Aleph-Beis and Capit Magnet fishing!