What are OUR roots?

Tu B'shvat is around the corner. After learning all about the parts of the tree, appreciating growth and the process of growing it was now time to learn a deeper lesson.

How as Jews, are we similar to trees? Specifically the roots?

Heading outdoors to look at the beautiful trees Hashem has created.

With all our strength we tried pushing down the tree.

"Why is it not falling down?"

Some answers we heard.
"Because the branches are so long."

"It's so heavy."

Under the big beautiful tree we learned about the purpose of the roots.
Under the ground are strong thick roots holding up this gorgeous tree.

We headed indoors to circle time to take our lesson to the next level.
We bought a mirror and invited each child to share with us what makes them feel strong.

Esther, "When I eat cheese."

Yanky, "Water makes me strong."

Mendel wanted to demonstrate how strong he was by picking up the mirror.

Emma, "When I'm with my family I feel strong"

While these were great and correct answers. It was now time to learn what makes a Jew strong!

THE TORAH!
The precious gift of the Torah was given to the Jews and it has kept us around for thousands of generations. By learning its beautiful lesson it will give us our 'roots' to weather life's storms.

There has been so much growth since the beginning of the school year. While talking about how strong and big they are, we had fun pointing out different areas where they have grown.

Yanky is now tall enough to reach his own backpack in his cubby!

Mina and Shalom stacking the chairs by themselves.

The big lego box was quite heavy. Two children started dragging it when we heard Moshe call out. "Hey lets get more friends to help us!" Friends started coming and working out on their own how to get the box to fit in the correct spot. While this showed how physically strong they were getting, it also showed us how their cooperation and teamwork has grown so much since the beginning of the year!

We opened a Torah and looked inside to see the Hebrew letters. Moshe counted all the Alefs he saw.

Mendel tracing the Hebrew letter 'Mem' for his name.

Working on our Tu B'shvat hats.

Chanie practicing her cutting skills by snipping blades of grass.

We noticed Mina helping Batya trace her arm and hand to make a tree.

Mina C. glueing on her leaves.

Rainy day fun bringing the bikes indoors!

Friday Shabbos party happiness. 

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.