Our mistakes make us stronger!

Yom Kippur

Our friends worked hard on their Yom Kippur booklets and learned all about what we do and don't do on the special day.

A kittul (what is customarily worn on Yom Kippur) hung from the ceiling to create an inspiration for their white painting project.

Practicing writing white and lavan in salt.

Yom Kippur is a day of davening to Hashem. 

By our davening circle we asked each child to draw what they want to say to Hashem. 

Role playing what happens when we make a mistake and how we can do teshuva and redo it. 

The red foot steps represented when we make a mistake. Mina and Chana Rochel role played hurtful words. Then we took a step back to the blue foot prints and said sorry and rephrased that.

We used a string that represented a rope that we make every time we do a mitzvah. It showed how we connect ourselves to Hashem. 

Esther cut it which is like what happens when we make a mistake. 

After, we tied it and noticed it was shorter. When we fix our mistakes we actually become closer to Hashem!

Before Yom Kippur we give extra Tzedakah. We took this opportunity to learn and graph the different coins.

Working independently on our Alef Beis workbooks.

Continuing our Alef Beis Chassidus.

Zayin- represents crown and sword. When Moshiach comes swords wont be used for wars.

Our friends had fun creating swords to bring to Alef Beis time.

Ches - is a shape of a Chuppa. When two people get married Hashem joins them!

A little mock wedding was a fun way to remember the letter Ches.

The letter Tes is number nine. A baby is in a mothers womb for nine months  A Tes also looks like a vessel holding a baby. The baby is learning Torah from a malach (angel) during the nine months of pregnancy. 

Mina dressed up like a mommy and had a doll in her tummy, we tried to listen to the Torah the baby was learning. Yanky adding alef beis to the hiding yud in the tes above the newborn baby.

Using our creativity and teamwork while coming up with a solution to a heavy pot filling up with water.

During our 'family meeting' time we have been working on eye contact. 

When we come into school and greet our Morah's it is respectful and feels good when we look at each others eyes. 

To start off less intensely we had a pretend Morah, our friends called 'Morah Cherry'.  Each child picked a greeting and found the Morah's eyes. 

Getting ready for Sukkos! 

Creating Sukkah decorations and learning about the 'Ushpizin' the holy guests who visit us every night of Sukkos.

 

Yom Kippur, Oops I'm sorry!

Rosh Hashana we learned all about being sweet! But what happens when we don't act sweet? what happens when we make a mistake?

This week our focus turned to Yom Kippur. The big idea of Yom Kippur, is that we can always fix things up! Even if we make a mistake, we can ALWAYS make things better!

During circle time our puppet friends role played some scenarios of friends that made mistakes that we are familiar with! 

Bashing down another friends block tower and sitting in a seat that someone else was already sitting at. Our puppet friends showed us how to "fix it" after singing the "Oops i'm sorry song."

TTTO "where is thumbkin"

"Oops I'm sorry, 

oops I'm sorry,

what did I do? what did I do?

I didn't want to hurt you, I want to make it better,

I made a mistake,

I'll fix my mistake"

When we respond to behaviors that are "mistakes" by singing the "Oops I'm sorry song," it helps the children remember they need to "fix" their mistake.

Mini Shule Center

Yom Kippur is a day spent in Shule (synagogue), and in prayer. With this in mind, we set up a mini "Shule" for the children to get familiar with, and learn appropriate behaviors for when they are in a real shule.

                                               

Menachem, Shua & Yossi jumped right into the Rabbi Role, finding a hat, Kittel and Tallis!

Chana was happy to find a siddur and practice davening

WHITE: Yom Kippur Sensory & Art

On Yom Kippur we traditionally wear white, so we chose to use white as inspiration for art and sensory table activities this week! Corn starch and water is so fascinating to experience. It feels hard at first touch, but once our body heat stays on it, it changes its consistency, and becomes soft, and drippy.

My very own Machzor

The machzor is made up of words from our holy Alef Beis. We used our Alef Beis time this week to create our very own Machzor, and reminded the children that Hashem loves hearing them sing the names of the letters !

 

Slipper Match game

As a fun way for the children to learn the mitzvah of not wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur, we prepared a slipper match game! The children were invited to find the right outline for a matching pair of slippers!

Rosh Hashanah and Alef Beis Chassidus

With all the Rosh Hashanah preparation and business how much more so we need to stop and take a deep breath and get a full amount of air for our brains. 

 It is actually quite difficult to breath in and fully fill your stomach with air when sniffing in from your nose. Esther helped us demonstrate with a rope around her tummy.

The morah is the 'safe keeper' however it has been empowering to have our friends be called our helpers in this job. 

Throughout the day we notice areas we can work on to be more safe. 

Our friends take the pictures to add to our book of how to be safe during circle time.

Yanky, demonstrated when we can rock our chairs and when we keep them straight. 

Visual picture expectations on our safe keeper box.

Making Davening routine meaningful by learning different body parts by Asher yatzar. Mina, helped us learn fun fact about the belly button one morning.

Continuing our Rosh Hashanah learning by practicing writing key words of the holiday.

Esther, creating apple structures using toothpicks.

Arik, hydro dipping his honey dish.

Learning about scales and how Hashem looks at all the mistakes and mitzvahs we have done.

Batya helping us add our mitzvah notes to the scale.

Making honey lolly pops. Our friends learned the ingredients, how to be safe and how to use a candy thermometer. We learned by experience when the temperature got too high it burned really quick.

We brought our goldfish to davening circle and learned about Tashlich. We davened that all our mistakes should go into the water.

Alef Beis review. We have been doing a lot of one on one work and time ourselves to watch the progress.

During Alef Beis chassidus this week we learned how Hashem created gimmel before daled. Gimmel is 'gavir' rich and daled is 'dal' poor. Hashem gives us money to give to tzedakah. Chanie, dressed up as gimmel and with a blindfold tried to find the daled in the room to give him money.

Decorating gimmel with a lot of money and looking to give.

Using our cutting skills to create patches for the "poor" daled.

Hey shows us we can't just use our mind and speech to do a mitzvah but we need our hands to actually DO it!

We role played a friend in need. Esther and Arik first just thought about her and talked about what the friend needed. But what she really needed is someone to help her pass a tissue. Without our hand piece of the hey the 'Daled' can fall over.

A Vav is like a hook that connects us to Hashem.  The Torah is that hook. Sholom playing fishing and trying to just get the vavs.

Being part of the process of wrapping up our Rosh Hashanah crafts. 

Some of our friends got to learn how to curl ribbon. ;)