Monthly Archives: September 29, 2016

Shana Tova!

Each day the yeladim are given the opportunity to have free play. This is a great time for the children to explore different classroom areas and to bond with each other using different tools. They feed off each other in what they are doing and sometimes in their conversations.  We love to eavesdrop on their conversations!!! Here are some of the things they shared this week.

Noam who likes playing in sand says, “I am making a sand castle.”

Anna who is creating with the magnets says, “I am making a castle.”

Anna arrives at sand with Noam and says” I am the big sister and I am going to get bigger just like my mom and dad”.

Eli was on the floor with the blocks and said, “We are building a real castle.”

Mae loves baking in the kitchen. “I am making apple pie.”

Effie was playing with the pattern beads. “I am making lollipops!”

Tal was exploring the magnets. “I am making a speedboat.”

Rosh Hashanah is still in the air, as we were creating cards the yeladim painted bubble wrap yellow for a bee hive. They loved the bubble wrap so much that we left some in the housekeeping are and the yeladim were popping the bubbles!

We love to search through our closets and find interesting things and figure out how to use them. We found some foam bees that were all different colors. The yeladim had a blast as they sorted the bees by color to match the corresponding colors of the circles on our mat! So much fun!

We have become bakers the past two days! Wednesday morning we made challah dough. We mixed, measured, and counted the ingredients. Thursday morning we shaped them! Since we had focused so […]

By |September 29, 2016|
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Rosh Hashana baking in the Butterfly Class!

Yesterday, we starting baking challah for Rosh Hashana! First, we carried a really big bowl into our classroom.

Together with the Sunflower Class, we looked at our recipe and saw that we needed water, yeast, sugar, oil, eggs, salt and flour. First we put the yeast in a bowl with hot water and waited – guess what happened? It grew and got bigger and bigger! Then everyone took turns measuring and pouring in each ingredient, and we passed the bowl around so each person could have a turn to mix. It turned into dough!

After it was all mixed, we let it rise and it got even bigger! It filled up the whole bowl. We decided that on Thursday we would shape the challahs and bake them.

And that’s what we did today! We each got a piece of dough and rolled it, poked it, flattened it out, and made it into a round challah for Rosh Hashana. The dough felt very soft and sticky!

We waited very patiently while they baked. Our classroom smelled so good when they were done.

We also made honey cake! We are becoming expert bakers and are great at giving everyone a turn with pouring and mixing. We put in all the ingredients and then poured the batter into small pans.

We will each be able to bring home our own little cake!

We can’t wait to taste our yummy Rosh Hashana delicacies in just a few days.

By |September 29, 2016|
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Welcome Ayalon! Welcome Shofar Factory!!

This week we welcomed a new boy into our class! His name is Ayalon. We showed him all around our classroom and have been getting to know him and showing him all the fun things we do every day.

The shofar factory visited us yesterday. We paid such close attention as Rabbi Rosenblum showed us where a shofar comes from – he had a big ram head with 2 horns on top!

Lia said, “It’s like a sheep!”

Lieba said, “The ram doesn’t have earrings.”

He passed around lots of different kinds of shofars – big ones and little ones – and we touched them to see if they were smooth or bumpy.

We loved when he blew a very, very long shofar sound – a tekiyah gedolah! We practiced making shofar sounds along with him and remembered what they were. Then Lauren and Ayalon helped him measure the shofar to see how long to make it.

We all had a chance to use sandpaper to make it shiny to use on Rosh Hashana.

Thank you Rabbi Rosenblum!

 

By |September 28, 2016|
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Having a Shofar Blast with the Sunflowers, and More.

Rabbi Rosenblum came to our school and taught us how a shofar is made. The Torah uses a special word to tell us what type of horn from which animal. There are two categories for horns; one is Shofar and one is Keren. We only use shofar for this special mitzva. We use a horn that had a bone in it. It is best for the shofar is curly but if you only have a straight one that is ok. Rabbi R gave each child a shofar and they were able to sand their own shofar. This was so exciting.

 

Since last Thursday was the first day of fall, we started our exploration on this colorful season. We read “Ruby’s Falling Leaves” by Grosset and Dunlap. Ruby wants to collect as many leaves as she can for her leaf book.

Last week we collected leaves from the playground, all different types and shapes. The week before, we had collected twigs and sticks. The yeladim love “searching for things,” and when they find something they become so excited! We took a close look at what we collected. We noticed the twigs were hard and stiff. As we touched them and felt the rough bark we noticed the bark would sometimes fall off. We will take a closer look at what is underneath. We found many brown leaves and few green leaves on the ground. The brown leaves crunched and were easier to rip and scrunch.

We created a Fall Collage on picture frames. The yeladim chose which leaves and twigs they wanted to use. They enjoyed the new way to glue things by using their hands to actually dip the stick or the leaf in glue, and the place […]

By |September 28, 2016|
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Never a Dull Moment in the Sunflower Class

It’s been a busy week with the Sunflowers!

Our clay apple sculptures dried so we were able to paint them “apple red” or “apple green”. They look great!

As we continued our focus on bees, we looked at large pictures of real bees. We observed the parts of a bee and noted the abdomen and wings and yellow and black stripes. With this information the children were then able to create their own version of a bee by painting the base of the body yellow and then adding black stripes as well. The yeladim are excited to place their very own bees on the container for their honey pot.

Not only did we create pretend bees, we actually pretended to be bees as well. We listened to the music composed by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Flight of the Bumble Bee”, and since we learned that bees communicate by wiggling and dancing, we wiggled and danced to the song! The song is very fast, just how bees fly from flower to flower and slurp up the pollen and nectar. We had a great time!

We love cutting, so we recycled pretty Rosh Hashanah cards and cut them into different shapes. Then the yeladim glued the shapes on to a big piece of brown butcher paper. We added ‘LeShana Tova’ in Hebrew on the top and it looks great. We are going to hang it upstairs in the lobby!

Last but not least, since we stamped with pomegranates on paper, we decided we weren’t finished enjoying this special fruit! We actually made pomegranate play dough! First, we smelled our real pomegranate fruit. Next, we explained to the yeladim that some people make teas out of delicious fruit. We showed them pomegranate […]

By |September 23, 2016|
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Taking a Dip in the Butterfly Garden Class

 

We love to sing “Dip the Apple in the Honey” so much!! So we decided that when we were making our honey dish for Rosh Hashana, that we had to do some dipping!! Making connections with the children is an important skill to strengthen. It helps them build on prior knowledge. We try to repeat activities and experiences with a twist each time.

So we dipped our spoons in a mixture of glitter and glue and then we dipped it again in Mod Podge to make it shiny! And all the while we kept singing “Dip the Apple in the Honey”! You will love doing your dipping on Rosh Hashanah with this one of a kind item. (Not for sale in stores.)

 

By |September 22, 2016|
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IBECC Welcomes 2 Special Visitors

The following is a true story!! Every bit of it!

Rabbi Mischel loves to spend time in our classrooms! As a matter of fact, if you are supposed to meet with him and can’t find him, come visit us!! That is exactly where he was found this week! And he brought with him a very special Shofar. Rabbi Mischel tells us that every year on Rosh Hashana it is his job to say out loud the names of each shofar note so the blower knows what to blow. He told us he says Tekiah and waits to hear one long note, Shevarim, he waits to hear 3 shorter notes, Teruah he listens for many quick notes, and his favorite Tekiah Gedolah, one really really really long note! Well we wanted him to blow his shofar for us. But Rabbi Mischel said, with a very sad expression on his face, that he has never really been able to get any sounds out of his shofar. Well, we told Rabbi Mischel that it is important to keep trying and not to get discouraged. We cheered him on and said, “You can do it!” So Rabbi Mischel put the shofar up to his mouth and we all shouted, “Tekiah!” and guess what!! Rabbi Mischel was able to blow the Tekiah!! He looked so happy. So we shouted, “Shevarim!!” And again he was able to do it!! Rabbi M was getting excited now. We shouted , “Teruah!!!” Well, What do you think we heard!! And Rabbi Mischel said to us, “Yeladim, I can’t believe it!! Do you think we should try for the Tekiah Gedolah? I don’t think I can do it! After all those, it might be too […]

By |September 22, 2016|
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Tashlich and Pomegranates and Clay, Oh My! Sunflower Class

 

In continuing with our Rosh Hashanah explorations, we revisited our Tashlich pond. Last week we had so much fun painting it with our feet. The children loved the feel of the paint squishing between their toes. Our next step was to add another layer to the pond. We notice that when we look at water it seems shiny on the surface, and we wanted our pond to be shiny, too. We looked at our paper and noticed it wasn’t shiny so we looked at other types of paper. We chose cellophane and since we only had clear we painted it blue, and glued it on our Tashlich pond. When we spoke about what we find in a pond we mentioned little fish so we added those as well. Now when we sing our Tashlich song, we will go to our pond and throw all our Aveirot away!

 

We discussed that a pomegranate is another special food that is eaten on Rosh Hashanah. We actually brought one into our classroom. We looked at the outside and noticed it looked different than our apples. Then we looked at what it looks like inside. All those tiny seeds. We dipped the pomegranate in red paint and pressed it on paper. It was so much fun to look at the shape that the pomegranate made (a circle). And some of the seeds fell out onto the paper as well! Wait till you hear what we did next!! To be continued…

The children have loved manipulating our sculpting clay so much that they began integrating Rosh Hashanah items into their creations! Last week the children said they were creating space ships and dinosaurs out of the clay. This week they […]

By |September 21, 2016|
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Honey and Other Stuff in the Butterfly Class

We’ve been continuing our honey explorations for the last few days. We touched a piece of a real beehive! No there were no bees nearby. Morah had brought an old one into school. We made sure to touch it gently with one finger so it wouldn’t break. It felt bumpy and our fingers fit perfectly in the little holes!

We noticed the texture of the hive. We made beehive prints by painting bubble wrap and then stamping them onto paper. The bumps from the bubble wrap made the paint on the paper look just like the holes we saw in the hive. Lieba said, “Look at my beehive!”

At snack time, everyone got a spoonful of honey to taste as we sang Dip the Apple in the Honey.

Lia said, “I don’t like it.”

Zachary ate the whole thing.

Lauren said, “Can I have more please?”

Emily smiled when she tasted it and asked for more.

Lieba said, “I want to smell it! It smells like honey!”

We also explored apples. We held a red apple, a green apple, and a yellow apple. We noticed though they were all round, they each looked different from the other. Then we cut them up for a yummy snack, tasted each of them and said which one we like best. Uriel, Lieba, Emily, and Lia said they like green apples, Lauren said she likes red apples, and Maayan, Simon, and Zachary chose yellow. Lauren said, “It smells like food!”

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We created a beehive to hang from the tree in our classroom. We looked at pictures of real beehives and noticed their shape and color. We looked again at our real beehive in the classroom and remembered the color and the holes. On the large brown butcher paper we […]

By |September 20, 2016|
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Friends and Flowers and Shofars, OH MY! Butterfly Class

The children have been so excited to get back to school and see their friends again. They love to give each other their blocks with their pictures on it. We are taking every opportunity we can to focus on becoming familiar with the new routines in our class including taking turns with our friends, cleaning up each center after playing, sitting on the rug during circle time, walking safely to the playground, washing hands and then eating at the table, and napping. We are so impressed with how everyone is getting acclimated so quickly.

Along with that, we’ve been exploring and learning about familiar symbols used on Rosh Hashanah. We passed around a real shofar and the children each had a chance to touch and examine it and imitate the sounds it makes. We also started discovering information about honey. We looked at pictures of real bees and pointed out their parts and colors. We added stuffed bees to our “provocations/discovery table” and watched as the children brought them into the different areas of our classroom to incorporate them into their play. We also enjoyed buzzing around and flying like bees.

Morah brought in a real wooden honey dish and we enjoyed using it in various creative ways. We looked at the golden color of the honey and really enjoyed tasting it with our apples. The children’s faces were a treat as they experienced the sweetness and stickiness.

We are creating an Art Gallery in our classroom filled with original works by the children. Each child will have a special spot for their work. Our first art installation will be the children’s own representation of a honey collage. Using tissue paper and glue with dot paints, the children experienced […]

By |September 15, 2016|
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