Parshat Bo: A Stubborn Heart

Parshat Bo: A Stubborn Heart

This week we were introduced to the idea of Gematria. Each letter of the Alef Beis has a corresponding number it represents. The name of this week's Parsha is Bo, בא which equals to 3 using Gematria. The number 3 in the name of the Parsha is hinting to the last 3 makos (plagues) that we learnt about in this week's Parsha. 

1) Makas Arbeh - locusts/grasshoppers

2) Makas Choshech -darkness

3) Makas Bechoros - death of the firstborn.

Paroah had a stubborn heart. Every time he asked Moshe and Aron to stop the Makah he promised to let them go... but right after, Paroah became stubborn and changed his mind!

Yisroel is pretending to be Moshe, and he is talking to Paroah...

Morah Davina brought grasshoppers to school to show the children how they look!

We had a vote afterward to decide whether we should let them go or feed them to the bearded dragon.

Let's just say the bearded dragon wasn't very hungry for the rest of the day!

 

We played a fun game for Makas Choshech (plague of darkness)! Morah Davina hid some jewels around the classroom. The children tried to find all the jewels but did not touch it.

The Jewish people were able to see during makas choshech. But they didn't take anything from the Mitzriyim (Egyptians). When the Jews left Mitzrayim the Mitzriyim gave them all of their jewels.

Busy With Birthdays

Happy 6th Birthday Motty and Saige!

We love watching you learn and grow!

We love when mommies and daddies come into the class to share birthdays with us!

 

Can you count how many friends can fit on a slide?

Our Class Is Becoming Fluent In Alef Bais 

This week we had a lot of fun playing different Alef Bais games. Playing Alef Bais games helps us memorize the letters. Here we are playing Alef Bais Bingo.

We can definitely see the difference in the children that practice at home!! Keep it up!

Writing the letter with chalk while saying it makes us memorize it much better.

Forming Words 

                      Yisroel is working on filling in the beginning and ending sounds.

The children are turning sounds into words.

Glueing and glowing words are a lot of fun! This way we will figure out the word and eventually be able to read it smoothly.

                                                         Bela Riva is doing a great job!

We can read a lot of sight words.

 Saige went fishing for the fish with the sight word You.

Math In Groups 

Working together  on answering the math problems. 

                             The girls worked as a team to sort out the numbers into even and odd.

Adventures in Aleph Bais: כ

A matching game that involves our whole body!

Bringing games to the floor is always a fun twist

Evan uses cheerios to make the letter Kuf.

Everyone was excited to eat them after!

Using rubber band boards for some fine-motor practice.

for the letter K we involved a few different things that start with "k".

Evan found the correct numbered Key, then he was able to open the lock.

Faiga opened a new restaurant using kinetic sand and her imagination

Learning how to sequence, 

we looked at the pictures and then had to place them in the correct order.

We made up some silly stories about the pictures!

Seeds to Trees

Tu B'shvat Unit

Tu B'shvat- 15th of the Hebrew month of Sh'vat is a day that marks the beginning of a "new year" for trees. CLICK HERE to read more about this auspicious day.

The next couple of weeks we will be focusing on how special trees are, the similarity between us and the trees and deep lessons we can learn from the trees.

We started off the week heading outdoors to discuss the different parts of the tree. 

The roots were a bit more tricky to find!

 Batya placing the roots on her tree project.

 Wooden pieces were a fun way to create the trunk and branches and green play dough

became the leaves.

Adelle using her imagination with sticks and play dough.

Painting trees on cellophane!

As a foundation to discuss the growth of the trees, we talked about one of their favorite topics.
When they were a baby! We asked questions like, what did you need to grow? 

We got great answers like milk and sleep. :) 

Sholom showed us how to relax a crying baby. "Sh Sh"

Then we took out a little seed. 

This is a 'baby plant.' How can we help this seed grow? Milk and sleep won't work ;) 

Through discussions we got to the conclusion a plant needs water, soil and sun. 

Mendel demonstrating how we need water too!

 

Exploring different types of seeds.

We wanted to create an experiment that the children can document their own process of what growth looks like.

Each child created their own mini "green house. "

Mendel wetting his paper towel and Mina checking up on her lima bean.

What a great lesson on patience as we will be watching them daily to see if there is any sprouting!

Was fun watching the children visit their own greenhouse by the window.

Thank you Morah Malka for donating plants for our garden! What a great hands on lesson how to care for our plants.

The soil felt so good after a couple days of rain.

Emma found the roots on the flower plant!

Creating our Tu B'shvat project was a fun process.

We headed outdoors and painted under the big blue sky.

 Eli working with such precision as he made a tree out of twigs.

Loving friends.

Parshat Vayechi: A Handful of Blessings

This week's Parsha is the last  in Sefer Bereishis. 

Before Yakov passed away he calls his sons to bless them. Yosef brought Menashe and Efrayim with him to get a blessing by his father. Menashe was the oldest son and Efrayim was the youngest son. 

Yosef brought them close to his father. He put Menashe on the right and Efrayim on the left so Yakov can reach them easily. Yakov switched his hands and stretched his right hand over Efrayim, the younger one, and his left hand over Menashe, the older son.

Yosef thought his father got confused, but Yakov told him: Menashe your older son is going to become great but Efrayim will become even greater.

In this picture Evan is playing Yakov, Yisroel is Menashe and Mendel is Efrayim. 

 To help the children learn to differentiate between their right and left side, we tied a blue Ribbon on the right hand and a red ribbon on the left hand. 

Yakov then called all of his sons to tell them when Moshiach will come, but suddenly Hashem made him forget so he blessed them instead. In class we asked the children why do you think Hashem made him forget? Motty said: "Moshiach is a very big surprise".

After Yakov passed away the son's buried him in Me'aras Hamachpela, in Eretz Yisroel. 

Towards the end of the Parsha Yosef passed away. Yosef asked his brothers before he passed away to bury him in Mitzrayim and when Hashem pulls us out of Mitzrayim the YIDDEN should take him out with them.

Aleph Beis 

This week we learned the letters Shin ש and Sin ש. The difference between them is the dot. In this picture the children are showing the letter Shin by lifting their right hand to show the dot on the right.

Here the children are showing the letter Sin by lifting their left hand to show the dot on the left.

We love it when our mommies come and play with us in school!

Motty's mommy joined us for a game of Aleph Beis Spot-It.

"I can not believe it, am I reading!"

We finished learning the sounds and now we are working on blending words together.

Bela Riva first read the sounds separately then she glued the sounds together to make a word.    

Saige is looking for the correct letters to spell the words she found.

Rozie is working so nicely on her workbook.

 Figuring out the beginning sound of a word can be a lot of fun!

What's the Matter: Solids, Liquids and Gases

 The scientists in the Mitzvah Mentchie classroom discovered the 3 types of matter this week. 

A solid has a shape by itself, a liquid takes the shape of the container that it's in, and a gas has no shape and is hard to see.

Motty uses a funnel to pour vinegar into a bottle. After Yisroel combined that with baking soda, they created a gas reaction that blew up the balloon.

Bela Riva and Morah Davina work as a team
to sort the matter pictures into different categories.

                             

Aleph Beis Adventures: Yud

Connecting with our parsha this week, we explored the letter Yud using our Yadayim (hands).

Fayga colors her inflated "Yad" and had a lot of fun squishing and playing with it.

Mendel uses his pincher fingers and circles the Aleph-beis letters

 he hears the Morah say.

We like to review as we go along in Tk!

J is for Jewels

Evan strings beads to make a bracelet for his dad :)

The beads we used were a bit smaller and trickier to get on, requiring some intense focus and hand-eye coordination, but he persevered and was triumphant. 

*PSA:we are unsure if the jewelry made it home *

First we estimated how many Jewels it would take to fill the container.

Below Faiga adds a jewel to the pill bottle.

As we passed around the containers the numbers got higher and higher.

The answer's really surprised us!

Mining for Jewels was a great sensory tie-in.

Menachem the geologist used a magnifying glass to examine the stone, and a sieve to sift away the surrounding sand.

Caution:Writer at Work: Do Not Disturb

Shhhhhh! This is a library.

A sweet Shabbos party moment.