Learning from Books!

After seeing how much the children enjoyed our focus on books last week, we chose to extend the focus on learning from books for another week!

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital – Goldilocks Effect ▪

A research team at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital placed children aged 4 into an MRI machine and presented them with stories under one of three conditions: 

-          Listening to a story as audio – was ‘too cold’

-           Watching a story as video – was ‘too hot’

-           Reading a story in picture book – was ‘just right’

We used a few favorites to read each day, and enjoyed pausing at different stages of each book, to allow the children to absorb the words, consider what was being said, and expand their knowledge.

 "I can be Mevater" By Sara Blau

"Mevater" is a hebrew word which is a little tricky to translate. It might mean "forgive, or give in." But not in the sense that we feel bad.  When there is an argument or disagreement, we can choose to be Mevater, and become the real winner!  Because we made Hashem, and the other person happy! 

The book explored several examples of scenarios that come up in our classroom daily. For example choosing a seat at snack or circle time. Sometimes 2 people want the same seat! The one who is "mevater" chooses to allow his friend to have the seat they both want, and he becomes the real winner!

Glad to be Me! By Sara Blau

Using this book, the children had fun bouncing like a ball, swaying like a tree, dripped their fingers like rain, and flapped like a bird! We spoke about each of the levels of creation that Hashem made! Using their bodies and minds...we ended the book being reminded we are Happy to be just the way Hashem made us! People who can do Mitzvos! 

Morning Centers:

We worked on lots of hand eye coordination creating sensory balls for the children to squish! Spooning rice into a balloon attached to a funnel!

Using tweezers the children were invited to sort the shapes from a tray, onto a corresponding shape cutout! 

Stringing beads onto pipecleaners! 

 

Alef Beis Enrichment

Using rubber bands, the children had to match the letters from one side of the peg board to the other! It took lots of finger coordination and focus to get the band in the correct position!

 

 

Parshas Vayechi

We have our very own Yakov in our classroom, who came up to model for us what took place in this weeks Parsha with Yakov Avinu.

Menachem and Menachem came up to be Menashe and Efrayim (Joseph’s 2 sons), and as he put his hands out to bless them, he switched his hands, placing his right hand on Efrayim and his left hand on Menashe! While we learned about this we did lots of criss cross breathing, while we switched our hands over from one side to the other!