Gan Camarillo Preschool

Friday, July 13, 2018

Being a Bucket filler- power of kindness!

Ahavas Yisroel!

This week on "Mitzvah Street" we focused on the mitzvah of "Ahavas yisroel", loving our friends.

It's not always an easy mitzvah to fulfil. Particularly when friends might say or do something not nice.
To empower our children with the tools to respond appropriately when someone might do something mean, we learnt about "Bucket-filling."

The book "Sara the Bucket-filler" helped us learn this very valuable tool!

Everyone has an imaginary bucket. Sometimes our bucket is full, thats when we are happy. But sometimes our bucket is empty. When someone's bucket is empty --she/he will feel sad and sometimes do things that make other peoples buckets empty!
We learned that we have to try and fill our friends buckets and by doing that our own bucket will also be filled.

"Bina the Bucket filler"

Our new friend "Bina the bucket filler" joined us at circle time and we got to see how it feels to have an empty or full bucket.

Esther shows us what her bucket felt like after

she gave Ava a high five!

Mendel shows us the face he would make if someone

says something nice to him

Faiga shows us how she would feel if

someone did something not nice to her

Batyas bucket felt full when she did a trick to make her friends happy

The feelings on our friends faces as we read "Sara the bucket filler"!

Sholom exploring the soft vs. rough textures to help visualize
what kind vs. mean words can feel like

Friendship Bracelets

One morning the children were invited to "pick a friend" (we had a bowl of pictures of each child in the class) to make a "friendship bracelet" for that friend. This helped the children practice "Ahavas Yisroel" by gifting a friend with a bracelet! Ofcourse they worked on their fine motor skills to create these precious pieces!

Moshe making a bracelet for Mendel

Esther was so excited to get a bracelet from a friend!

Team work- Coloring Mural

We practiced working with friends, giving each other space to color a big beautiful butterfly!

Friendship Cookies

We enjoyed making cookie dough, and then shaping cookies to GIVE TO A FRIEND!

Experiencing the joy of giving and sharing with others!

Water play

We enjoyed a slip n slide and lots of wet water fun!

Reptile show

One of the highlights of our week was joining the older division to watch a reptile show!

Recycle inventions

Working together we created all sorts of fun things using recyclables!

Making and shaping Challah!

It wouldn't be mini Gan Izzy if we didn't end our day with ices!

Friday, July 6, 2018

Mini Gan Izzy- Brachos Blvd.

Mitzvah Street- at mini Gan Izzy this summer!

Each week we will explore another "Street " that will teach us all about a different Mitzvah. Our Mini Gan Bus with all our friends faces on it began at "Brachos Blvd"

Did you know that it's a mitzvah to thank Hashem for our food, every time we eat! And there is a different blessing we say to thank Him- depending on which food it is!

In addition to welcoming and transitioning many new friends, our goal this week was to help the children learn the difference between which foods grow in the ground "Adama" and which foods grow on a tree "Eitz."

Puppet teaches us about "Brachos" (Blessings)

During circle time our puppet friend, "Benny Bracha Boy" introduced all of our friends to the blessing of "Ha-adama" (for foods that grow in the ground.)

Watching the vegetables go into "Benny Bracha" mouth!

He then took us out to our own garden and we got to see some of the plants we grew!

Ava found a pea in the garden!

We got to taste some of the vegetables we picked.

Watering the "Adama"

Fine Motor - Fruit Seed Game

Tweezing and Counting the correct number of seeds to match the number of dots on the fruit!

"Taking the learning Home"

The children made handprint trees as the background for a "Brachos sorting game" that will be sent home today! With a painted "Adama" (ground) and "Eitz" (tree), we created a velcro matching game for the children to be able to practice their blessings at home!

There is a selection of "vegetables" and "fruits" that the children are invited to velcro stick into the correct place, while reciting the correct blessing!

"Hamotzi" Pizza making!

enjoying our pizza lunch!

**"Borei Pri Ha-eitz" salad!**

Using plastic knives to cut melon, pineapple, berries and apples-- we worked on real life skills while remembering which foods grow in the "Adama" (ground) or "Eitz" (tree)!