Monthly Archives: October 28, 2016

All the leaves are falling down in the Butterfly Class!

The weather sure is changing fast! We went for a nature walk yesterday and noticed that it was cold and we needed to wear a coat. We also saw that the ground is covered with red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves and learned a song about that.

TTTO London Bridge is Falling Down

All the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down x2

All the leaves are falling down

Red, orange, yellow and brown

We decided to choose some colorful leaves to bring a little bit of fall into our classroom. We chose the prettiest ones! Uriel held the basket while everyone put in the leaves they picked. He carried it so carefully all the way downstairs without spilling any!

We looked at the leaves and saw that they have shades of different colors all mixed together in different ways. Then we painted paper leaves in red, yellow, and orange designs, inspired by nature.

Then we sorted the real leaves and chose some to glue onto paper to create collages. We’ll turn the rest into a mobile to hang near the tree on our wall. We can’t wait for the room to be covered in fall leaves!

We also worked on a special book together this week – a book about the 6 days of creation. In helping children to understand the beautiful world that Hashem gave us, we find things around them that they are familiar with. We took photos of the children doing things they experience all day in their comfortable environment at school. We highlighted common positional words to help them develop spatial awareness and learn the foundations of early math. We hope you and they enjoy reading this special book together for a long time.

By |October 28, 2016|
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Hashem Created the World So fine! with the Sunflowers

Last week, if you recall, we began an exploration of light and darkness. We went into a dark room and experimented with how lights brighten up the darkness. This week we continued our amazing revelation of the beginning of the world. We shared with the yeladim that this week’s parsha is called Beraisheet. It is the first portion that we read in the Torah since we completed reading the Torah a few days ago.

This week we asked the question, “How was the world made?” We actually went to another dark room to illustrate to the yeladim again the darkness that was in the world before Hashem created light on the first day. Together we sat in the room for a couple of minutes and we asked the yeladim, “How does the dark make you feel?”
Tal said, “I feel myself.”

Effie said, “It’s hard to see.”

Noam said, “I see my hand’s shadow.”

Mae said, “It makes me tired.”

Eli said, “I can feel the floor.”

Anna said, “The dark makes me feel happy.”

Wow! The children were really able to express how the dark made them feel and what they were able to feel with their bodies. We then the lights were turned on! It was so bright just how Hashem made light!
On the Second day Hashem made the sky and the water. The Shamayim and the Mayim. The class went outside to look at the sky. “What do you see in the sky?” we asked.

Noam said, “I see the shemesh.”

Effie said, “I see a bird.”

Tal said, “I see the sun.”

Mae said, “I see a moon”

Eli said, “I see clouds.”

Anna said, “I see the trees in the sky.”

Off to the Plexiglas wall in the Art Studio we went! The yeladim painted […]

By |October 28, 2016|
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So Many Mitzvot, So Little Time, with the Sunflowers

We hope everyone enjoyed eating in their Sukkot, and that your meals were enhanced by the beautiful decoration your child made. We had so many chances these last few days to experience so many different types of Mitzvot. Thanks to a donation from a shule member we had our very own IBECC Lulav and Etrog!! Each day we were able to make the bracha on them in the Sukkah. And the best part? Smelling the Etrog!!

We loved being in the Sukkah so much that we decided to make a Sukkah we could say a bracha over and eat!!! That was a Yummy mitzva!

A very important way to do a mitzva is to make someone happy. And boy did we have fun doing that for one of our friends! We baked a cake for Noam for his birthday. We counted and measured each ingredient as we put it in the bowl. It was especially fun to count how many eggs we needed to crack. An interesting thing happened. We could not find the measuring cup to hold a full cup of water, so we learned that if we fill TWO half cups, that makes a full cup. We especially enjoyed doing the mitzva of Hachnasat Orchim when we welcomed Noam’s family including his Saba and Savta from Israel.

One morning we had to do the mitzvah of Hachnasat  Orchim again as the pre-k from Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy came to visit us in our Sukkah. It was so exciting to see former yeladim that came to visit us at the Iris Berman Early Childhood Center!  We sang wonderful, fun songs and shared a delicious treat. It was sad when we had to say […]

By |October 21, 2016|
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Chag Sameach from the Butterflies!

We hope you all had a lovely first few days of Sukkot and are enjoying the Sukkah decorations we made! Sukkot is happening in every corner of our school. We have a Sukkah in our classroom and love bringing our lulav in and shaking it while we sing our song: (TTTO: Where is Thumbkin) “To the Sukkah, to the Sukkah, we will go, we will go, shake shake shake the lulav, shake shake shake the lulav, to and fro, to and fro.”

We were so excited to have a bus full of special visitors on Wednesday and were proud to welcome them to our beautiful (real) outdoor Sukkah – the Pre K classes from Kushner came and joined us for a Sukkah party! We all sat in the Sukkah and sang lots of songs together and then had yummy treats. We made sure to say the bracha “leshev ba’sukkah” before we ate our cookies.

We also shook a real lulav and esrog!

We’re getting ready for Simchat Torah now too! Morah Rachelle took us to the Shul along with the Sunflower class and showed us some special things about the Torah. She told us that the closet in the front of the Shul is called an Aron Kodesh. Guess what’s inside? Real Torahs!

We counted and saw that there were 12. Morah Rachelle told us that each Torah has a silver crown, and we got to touch one and feel that it was cold and shiny. It also had bells on it and made tinkly noises! Each Torah also has a breastplate which is like a necklace for the Torah.

The most special thing was that we looked at the inside of a Torah! Very carefully without touching […]

By |October 20, 2016|
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We’re getting Ready for Sukkot!

Sukkot fun has come to IBECC.

By |October 13, 2016|
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Faithful Hidden Lives: A Rosh Hashana Message

Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, zt”l, grew up as a normal American Jewish boy in Chicago; he went to Arie Crown day school.  He eventually became a revered Rosh Yeshiva at the Mir in Jerusalem, and taught many thousands of students over the years; one of the great Rabbis of the generation.  When Rav Finkel died in 2011, the executive director of Yeshiva, Rabbi Grunwald, gave a eulogy for him at the Yeshiva Gedolah of Teaneck, and told the following story:

About 20 years ago, one of Rav Finkel’s students in New York died suddenly and very young, leaving behind a wife and 5 children.  Rav Finkel, who had been very close to this student, felt a personal responsibility to the family.  He told the children to stay in touch with him through letters, and that they could ask him any question on their minds or write to him about any issue that might come up. Rav Finkel kept photos of these orphans in his pocket as a constant reminder of his “other” family, and he developed a real connection with the children.  The kids would write to him about everything, even inconsequential, small things – a sign of real comfort and closeness.  And Rav Finkel, with great difficulty due to his Parkinsons disease, would always write a letter in response.  This went on for many years until the boys grew up and came to Israel to learn in Yeshiva, where every Friday night, the boys would have dinner with Rav Finkel and his family.

After Rabbi Grunwald completed the eulogy, he was approached by one of the young married men in the Teaneck yeshiva. The man said: “The story about the orphans is an unbelievable one, […]

By |October 10, 2016|
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Teshuva, Tefillah and Tzedaka in the Sunflower Garden

We hope you had a meaningful Rosh Hashanah. On Wednesday right after our class davening, we began our focus on Yom Kippur and what an important day it is. Each day in school we take the time to daven, give tzedaka and be a good friend, by helping and sharing and by making sure we say we are sorry if we hurt someone’s feelings. At this time of year we make extra sure to do these things, focusing even more on teshuva, asking for forgiveness. We even say sorry to Hashem for the mistakes we have made. We discussed with the yeladim what Yom Kippur day is like and that a lot of mommies and daddies will not be eating food the whole day, so that they can concentrate on their davening.

We read the book Yonah and the Whale. This story from Tanach is so important so it is read in the afternoon of Yom Kippur. Hashem told Yonah to go to the city of Ninveh to tell them that they are not listening to Hashem’s laws in the Torah and that they should do teshuva. Yonah did not want to go because he was afraid they wouldn’t listen to him, so he ran away and went on a boat. He fell asleep and was awakened by a big storm on the water. Hashem knew that Yonah was on the boat and made the storm. Other people on the boat realized that it was Yonah’s Hashem who was causing the storm. Yonah agreed to be thrown from the boat to save everyone else. He started sinking down to the bottom of the ocean, but Hashem sent a whale to swallow him up. He stayed in the […]

By |October 7, 2016|
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Happy Birthday Simon! Teshuvah, Tefillah, Tzedaka with the Butterflies

We were so excited to be back at school after Rosh Hashana! We jumped right in to learning about and preparing for Yom Kippur.

Every day in school we take time to daven, give tzedaka, and make sure to be kind to our friends. We are very familiar with the words Tefillah and tzedaka, and this week we focused a little more on Teshuva and kindness and friendship.

One of our favorite things each day is to put money in our class tzedaka box adn sing our special song. Before Yom Kippur, it’s a big mitzvah to give tzedakah, so we decorated our very own tzedakah boxes! We used sparkly glitter paint and sang our tzedakah song (“Tzedakah tzedakah tzedakah, that is what we give, to the poor people to help them live, so they’ll have food and clothes, so they’ll have food and clothes, even a penny a day, before we start to pray.”) while we painted.

We are so excited to bring it home to fill it up!

When we daven every week in school and in shul we can wear any shoes we like. But on Yom Kippur, we can only wear shoes that aren’t leather. So we made slippers out of foam! We stuck foam stickers on them in all different shapes and colors. First we chose which sticker we wanted out of a big box. Then we carefully peeled the backing off each piece and decided how to add it to our design. Some of us chose only one sticker but other of us enjoyed putting on many layers!

Our slippers look so beautiful! Each pair is unique.

 

We want to say a big happy birthday to Simon Jager! We had so much fun celebrating with him and […]

By |October 7, 2016|
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