Our words are powerful!

Was so good seeing everyone after being in New York and gaining inspiration to take back home. 

Our friends requested a treat from New York as well as getting to pick out Rebbe picture stickers they wanted to take home.

We are continuing our Brachas unit and this week we focused on Mizonos that we say on cookies, cake crackers etc.

Learning different techniques how to make pretzels out of playdough.

It was fun trying to spell out pretzels in hebrew using the vowels we already know.

Feeding cookies with words on it and feeding it to the right 'vowel friend'.

Cereal necklaces using different flavors. Some chose their best flavor some friends made patterns.

We have been working hard on our very own Brachas cookbook. Each child is responsible for their own recipe by taking pictures and writing out the process. Learning happens when they are the ones in the driver seat and part of each step in the process!

Fun sensory cupcake making.

Pasta is also Mizonos, Esther making a house out of noodles.

Working hard on a Bracha puzzle, was fun listening to what foods are their favorites.

In this week's Parsha Mishpatim we learned about the power of our words.

Each day we role played and drew different relatable social stories how our words can either make us feel good or not. 

There has been such teamwork by our free play time and having our friends realize their success in figuring out their own solutions by being intentional about the words they choose.

A fun workout session. We learned what and where our bicep and triceps is.

Happy 6th birthday to Esther!

Happy Tu B'shvat

Happy Tu b'shvat!

We celebrated the new year of the trees this week.

Tree inspired art.

Yanky, experimenting with mixing the paint colors.

Tree word review. Was a fun sensory experience making leaves for our tree that had hidden words that we can read!

After the rain, it feels so fresh and clean. We headed outdoors and tried drawing the beautiful trees.

Celebrating Tu B'shvat by tasting the 7 minim. The special fruits of Israel. 

Yanky working hard on his fruit shiskabob. Apricot was his favorite. We have also started our 'Brachas' unit. Tu B'shvat was a great way to start off with the bracha of Haetz! Our friends were so excited they can read the word haetz in hebrew.

Making our own Tu B'shvat treat.

We went on a little trip to the back of our school which has beautiful trees. 

We placed different words they can now read and had a hunt to see who can find the correct word being called out.

Bracha Haadama. 

Learning to write the word and we can read this word on our own as well!

Creating a delicious 'Haadama salad'

 

Our beautiful garden

This week we celebrated a very special day on the Chassidic calendar, the 10th of shvat. A day when our Rebbe became the Rebbe. We learnd what a Rebbe is and how when we connect to a special Tzaddik (righteous person) it helps us connect to Hashem.

Practicing writing Rebbe in Hebrew and the date.

Learning about the order of the 7 Chabad Rebbes. Shmuel writing the word Rebbe and created a garden scene.

We learned how this world is like a garden. We beautify this world with our mitzvahs.

Yanky and Sholom following a step-by -step instructions on how to make flowers.

Our own school is named a garden! And our friends are constantly filling this world with so many beautiful mitzvah moments.

How can I connect to the Rebbe?

We created different Mitzvah scenes that can bring Moshiach something the Rebbe dedicated his life to!

Making a connecting chain of all of our Mitzvahs, this was such great teamwork!

This week's Parsha Bashalach we learned about the splitting of the sea. 

Chanie and Chana Rochel creating the ocean and the Jewish people walking on the dry land.

Working hard on an ocean puzzle.

This Shabbos is also called 'Shabbos Shira', when the Jewish people sang thank you to Hashem for letting them leave Mitzrayim and getting them safely through the splitting of the sea.

There is a custom to feed the birds since the Jewish children fed the birds from the fruit trees growing on the dry land in the sea.

It was a fun process placing peanut butter and bird seed in an egg carton.

We have also been getting ready for Tu B'shvat. We learned how the sap is starting to come in the Tree and blossoms are growing. There are different Mitzvahs in the Torah that depends on how old the tree's is. This cycle starts on the new year for the trees on Tu B'shvat. 

Creating our own trees by tracing and practicing our writing skills.

Using blossoming tree pictures as inspiration to decorate our tree.

Arik working on his family tree. 

        Tzerei vowel practice by hole punching two dots under the different letters on the leaves.

Tu B'shvat is on the 15th of the month. We practiced our number counting by placing fifteen beads on the pipe cleaners. Esther loves creating patterns.

 

Secret of the Trees

   ​It was so wonderful to welcome back our friends after a nice winter break! Thank you to everyone who sent in photo's. Each child having a chance to share was an opportunity for them to shine, as well as reinforce our own school family connection with each other!

The next few weeks will be focused on Trees, as we prepare for the Jewish Holiday of Tu B'shvat!  

The children were welcomed with a dramatic sized Tree coming out of our bulletin board! Tova noticed there was a T for Tova on the wall. Shua found an "Sh" like in his name. It was fun figuring out what the letters on the wall spelled, and discovering more about trees! After Morah Leah gave a clue that it was the birthday of the trees, Menachem Freeman immediately figured out that those words spelled "Tu Bshvat!"

                                          

We offered lots of nature inspired art to get into the spirit of this unit! Fresh flowers and pot plants along with a palette of brown, green and white paint to make our own plant art!

 

We used leaves to create negative space art, and leaf imprints!

 

Trunk Tracing

Tree Memory Match

While learning about different tree names, 

the children also worked on turn taking and refining their memory skills!

What better place to go to learn about the different parts of a tree, than outside, by a beautiful tree!

We read a book called the secret of the trees! We learned that the size of the tree that we see above the soil, is only HALF of how big the actual tree is, because the roots go down SO deep into the ground!  Did you know that the roots of the largest tree extends as wide as a soccer field,  and can take up as much space as a football stadium!

We are so lucky to have such a beautiful field with majestic trees all lined up behind our school. The children soaked in Hashem's wonders as they touched, hugged and marveled at the tree and its great branches and shade!

We learned the names for each part of a tree, and labelled our bulletin board tree together! 

 

How do trees and plants begin? Seeds. 

We offered several ways for the children to explore and understand what a seed is! One morning we filled our sensory table with beans, for the children to explore, play with and fill into little spice containers. It was fun working hard to fit them into the small holes!

Using tweezers to strengthen our fine motor skills the children were invited to pick out the seeds from acorn and butternut squash! After all their hard work, we roasted the seeds and the vegetables and enjoyed a delicious healthy snack!

 

We read a book called "The carrot Seed" by Ruth Krauss

We planted beans in an eggcarton planter. After learning what seeds need to grow, we are hoping we can make sure our seeds get the right amounts of "Mayim" and "Shemesh" each day so we can eventually see the wonder of the bud sprouting out!

Alef Beis Enrichment

Dipping strings into water glue to decorate our letter Hey!

Alef Beis  Bowling! We took turns rolling the ball and announcing the letters on the pins that we knocked over! Alef through Hay!

We had fun running from letter to letter across the classroom! When Morah Chani called out the letter, we had to find where it was posted and run to it!

Happy Birthday Chana!

Thank you for gifting our school with a new set of sand shovels! We all enjoyed playing with them!

One of our favorite lineup/waiting games is playing "Simon Says." Our friends got creative when they had turns to play "Simon" and instructed their friends to touch different parts of our bulletin board tree! They know what the roots, bark, trunk, branches and leaves are!