Purim: The power of prayer!

     The Mitzvah Mentchie historians were excited to delve into the story of Purim this week. It was a real treat to look at Gan Camarillo megillahs from the past. Many kids were able to spot siblings or cousins!

Each day we intorduced the next part of the Purim story with a game of hangman. A great way to practice letter recognition! 

Following a directed drawing to draw Achashverosh's palace.

Building our palace and playing in it was a blast!

Everyone enjoyed sitting on the throne under the canopy

Putting on "makeup" in the palace like the girls did. Esther just came with her natural beauty and Achashverosh realized she looked the most queenly.

We went into depth in the story and everyone couldn't wait to hear the next part.                                     Feeling the sackcloth that mordechai wore 

We have been talking alot about how precious our davening is to Hashem, by Davening we learned that the reason our yetzer hara tries to distract us, is because of how much Hashem loves the davening of Jewish children. 

Haman tried to stop the Jewish children from davening, he put them in chains, but they refused to stop davening to Hashem, and when Hashem saw that he decided to stop Haman's evil plan!

Practicing taking turns with a fun Purimland game.

Jewish children getting ready to read with an Aleph Beis game!

fine motor practice.

We filled up everyone's bucket's by creating a hole big enough for everyone's feet!

Kindergarten update

Math

Mendel putting a puzzle together to create the correct sequence of counting by 10s.

Mendel counting by 5s.

Decoding color aquarium by solving addition and subtraction problems. 

Subtraction work, learning different techniques to get to the answer.

Language Arts:

Touching up our understanding of rhyming words and being able to write it using a small space.

Learning our vowels. 

After learning which letters are the vowels, we had fun finding them in words as well as trying to listen to a word and spell it using the correct vowel.

Learning Nouns and Verbs. Meir, categorizing the different pictures. Some were very tricky since the verb pictures contained a noun in them.

Playing a game of charades drawing a Noun or a Verb for friends to guess.

Mina, practicing her site words and reading it in a sentence.

 

Mendel had fun practicing each sound of the alphabet on a computer keyboard.

Continuing our Cap-It program. Mendel, spelling out a sentence. Mina, matching the correct audio sound to her sentence.

Who wouldn't want to be in a palace??

Purim unit

Mordechai and Esther's home has been quite a busy place to be. Friends, having fun doing Mitzvahs together. 

Chana, tracing the alef beis in her Torah scroll just like Mordechai learned Torah. 

We took this opportunity to talk about all different types of Mitzvahs.

We learned about listening to our parents and loving them. Ben, while looking at a picture of his mommy and daddy, drew a picture for them!

Shabbos candle inspired play. 

Menachem, built a tower and added a candle on top to make a Shabbos candle stick. 

Shua, using his fine motor skills to place the popsicle candles in the holes of the egg carton.

We loved pointing out all the 'Mordechai and Esther moments' throughout the day. Menachem, sharing his toys he found with his sister Leah.

It was now time to get into the actual Purim story. 

We learned about a powerful king named Achashverosh who lived in Shushan. Our friends, picked up right away the difference between Mordechai and Esther home in contrast to the palace. 

The king loved to boast and only invited everyone to a big feast to show off. 

We role played a lot this week what boasting and bragging feel like.

Eating in the Palace and experiencing the environmental change.

Palace inspired art. Creating a beautiful water color backdrop to a silhouette castle.

Yakov, creating a palace out of magnet tiles.

The King needed a new Queen.  Esther was chosen amongst girls from all over the world. Even though she was scared, she knew this is what Hashem wanted.

Who wouldn't want to be in the Palace?!

Our friends knew right away why she hesitated, this was not a place Esther was used to or felt comfortable in.

Our friends helped her pack up her Mitzvahs to take with her. 

Leah gave Esther a Siddur, Menachem, gave her a Torah to take. 

Hashem is also in the Palace!! 

Chana, getting ready for Purim, by decorating her Megillah cover!

I Can Be a Bucket Filler

 

As we head toward Purim, Mitzvah Mentchies delved into a unit on friendship and teamwork.

We started off by reading a book called "How to Fill Your Bucket."

We learned that we all have invisible buckets, if we have good feelings, it means our bucket is full; and if we have bad feelings it usually means our buckets are empty. 

When we act toward others in a nice way we fill up their bucket!

Acting towards others nicely also fills up our own bucket.

If someones bucket is empty, it's really hard to fill up other friends buckets.

Morah Davina hid pictures in the classroom, we looked but we couldn't find them, then she told us we were on top of them!

Sorting ways to be a bucket filler or a bucket dipper.

Mina noticed a younger friend feeling sad, so she went over to cheer him up!

That's being a bucket filler!

Batya helped fill Shmuel and Mina's bucket by taking a coin carefully and giving it gently.

We read a super fun book called Peanut Butter and Cupcake

Peanut Butter was looking for a friend who would go together with him.

Each time someone said no, or didn't have time the Mitzvah Mentchies realized his bucket got emptier and emptier. Finally he made a friend! His bucket filled up!

Finding matches we can go together with!

We all fit together! As a class, as a school and as friends!

Bringing to life how we all go together!

 

Part of being a good friend is knowing how to work in a team!

We took on some teamwork challenges this week!

Working as a team to get in order from shortest to tallest. This was super tricky, we needed to hold onto our friends so they wouldn't fall into the lava.

Teams know how to make group decisions, in this game our whole team had to do the same action and work together!

Bucket fillers can work together nicely.

Trying to fill up the buckets and throw the ball in!

Mina kept track of Chana Rochel's score with tally marks.

Meir used a special technique to be able to get it in the farthest bucket,

Filling up a bucket with GIANT water beads!

Decorating buckets for our bulletin board.

Esther worked carefully on her color by number!

Sorting bucket filler and bucket dipper.

 

Decorating masks to send our grandparents for purim!