Monthly Archives: September 28, 2017

Let’s be friends……. in the Sunflowers

Hope all of you had a meaningful Rosh Hashanah. Now we are focusing on the next few weeks with the other Yom Tovim around the corner. We talked about Yom Kippur and what the reason is for this important day. We say sorry to Hashem for all the mistakes that we have made. The yeladim learned that many people will be in shule all day davening as well as not eating or drinking. We cannot wear leather shoes on our feet either.

We focused on two important aspects of Yom Kippur. Not only is it important to say you are sorry to your friends, but it is just as important to forgive as well. Accept the apology. Say “It’s ok.”

We talked to the yeladim about friendship and what are nice things to do with our friends. We loved standing in a circle holding hands and singing our “Let’s Be Friend’s” song. We hope you enjoy the book that we made on friendship. The book is just a small glimpse of what goes on during the day in our kitah. The Morot love observing all the yeladim playing with each other and their willingness to play with different friends during the day!

After Yom Kippur, the next Yom Tov is the Chag of Succot. We build a Succah outside the house. The Succah is like a hut that we are supposed to eat in for seven days. On top of the Succah is S’chach. S’chach can be any different types of branches and therefore every succah will look different. During circle time the yeladim learned that Succot can be made of different materials. Cloth and wood are examples of what the Succot can be made of. As […]

By |September 28, 2017|
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Sharing is caring in the Butterfly Class

We are really settled in to the classroom routines by now. The children love circle time where we sing lots of davening songs like Modeh Ani, tzedakah songs, Shema, Torah songs, and more. They’re learning all the words and motions!

We’ve been learning all about Yom Kippur. We discussed that it’s a time to do nice things for our friends and make sure we say sorry if we do something to hurt them. We can say “I’m sorry,” “Do you forgive me?” and “I won’t do it again.” If any opportunities came up in the classroom to put this into practice, we help everyone say just the right things to make our friends feel better. We’re also learning how to take turns with the toys and how to ask for a turn with our words. We say, “Can I have a turn when you’re done?” and then we tell the other person when it will be their turn.

We sang a song.

“Let’s be friends, make amends

Now’s the time to say I’m sorry,

Let’s be friends, make amends

Please say you’ll forgive me.”

Since we use a tzedakah box every day during davening, the children were excited to learn that we give lots of tzedakah before Yom Kippur, putting even more coins into the tzedakah box. (This is a great fine motor and pincer grasp practice as well!) We learned that we daven in shul all day on Yom Kippur, and visited the shul to remember how quietly we sit. We tried on slippers because we don’t wear leather shoes on Yom Kippur. We also learned that our mothers and fathers don’t eat or drink, so we need to listen nicely to them! 🙂

We’ll be sending home a […]

By |September 28, 2017|
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Shana Tova from the Butterflies!

We hope you enjoy the Rosh Hashana package we sent home with delicious treats inside. The children made the challah dough together and kneaded and poked their piece into a round challah. Then they sprinkled sugar on top for extra sweetness.

   

They also made the chocolate apples by dipping their apple into melted chocolate and then choosing what kind of sprinkles to dip it into.

  

On Monday we had music with Morah Jill. We sang Rosh Hashana songs and danced around the gym together. We had so much fun!

 

And we’ve really been enjoying our outside play time!

L’shana Tova Umetuka! Have a happy and sweet new year!

By |September 19, 2017|
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Shana Tova! from the Sunflowers

We are so excited for Yom tov! The yeladim have been learning so much about Rosh Hashanah that they cannot wait for it to come!

We bet you loved the photos from last Friday when we had TWO rabbis come to our Shabbat party in the Shul. Rabbi Mischel brought his guitar and we loved singing our songs while he was strumming along. Rabbi Klibanoff came from Eitz Chaim and brought two shofars. One shofar was big and the other was very small. We noticed that different sounds came from each shofar! You can enjoy our experience over and over through the videos on our Facebook page.

We added some fish to our Tashlich pond. The yeladim remembered that when we go to a Tashlich the water can be a lake, pond or even an ocean. The water has to come from the sky. “No swimming pool!” the yeladim yelled.

We know you will love our Apple Jam!! Here’s what you’ll need to make a batch of Apple Jam: (http://www.oster.com/blog/archive/2015/october/how-to-make-apple-jam-for-the-fall.html#?sortby=newest)

6 cups peeled and chopped, tart apples
Juice and zest from 1 lemon
2 cups unsweetened apple juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons pectin
1 1/2 cup sugar or sugar substitute
6 Ball® (8-ounce) half pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands
Your Crock-Pot® Slow Cooker
Your Performance Blender.

Get your jam ready for dozens of uses.

Apple Jam Directions  
Once you get all of your equipment and ingredients, you’ll be ready to get cooking.

Start by washing the lids and bands of your jars in warm, soapy water then set them out to dry. Wash the jars in simmering water.
Separately, combine the apples, lemon, and apple juice in your slow cooker and bring them to a boil. After they […]

By |September 19, 2017|
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We have been cooking up a storm! in the Sunflowers

We love having apples for snack in school so much, that the yeladim wanted to make some apple flavored dishes that will enhance your Yom Tov. One morning the yeladim had the opportunity to cut apples into all different sizes for our Apple Jam.  They really did a great, safe job holding the plastic knives. Then we measured the rest of the ingredients and put it all inside a crock pot. They noticed that the crock pot looked familiar to them. The cholent for Shabbos goes in a  crock pot as well!

The bees look amazing in our hive that we made. They yeladim love looking at the hive with all the bees buzzing around inside! They talk about how the bees find the nectar and tell each other where it is so they can all make honey together.

Rabbi Y came to school to show us how to make a shofar. We loved helping him!! A shofar has to come from a kosher animal. He blew all the four sounds that the yeladim learned. Then we got to make the shofar we made back to our classroom!!! We get to touch it and remember we helped make it. Now when we hear it on Roshh Hashana we will be so familiar with it!

The next dish that we made for Yom tov was apple crisp. We mixed all the ingredient for the filling; sugar, cinammon, flour and brown sugar and of course apples. It smelled so good! Then we mixed the topping. The yeladim love looking in the bowl and seeing the separate ingredients become one cohesive topping. They smelled the topping as well. It smelled so yummy!

In circle time we opened up a pomegranate. It is a […]

By |September 15, 2017|
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It’s Shofar Time! in the Butterfly class

We do so many things on Rosh Hashana. We dip apples in honey, we go to shul, we go to tashlich, and we blow the shofar. We’ve been practicing our shofar sounds and learned a song too.

Toot toot toot, I’m blowing my shofar

Shana tova, shana tova! 

Rabbi Rosenblum came today to show us how a shofar is made. He had a few long shofars for us to touch, and some small antlers too. Some were straight and some were curly. We passed them around really nicely for each person to hold.

   

Some of us even had a chance to help make the shofar by pulling, drilling, and twisting. We have such strong and helpful children in our class!

After that, we each had a turn to sand it down with sandpaper to make it smooth. Then we got to take our very own shofar to our classroom to practice blowing it!

We’re preparing some other delicious surprises too. Rosh Hashana is right around the corner!

By |September 15, 2017|
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We are such busy bees! in the Sunflowers

We are continuing our fascination with honey! We loved tasting it, dipping with it, and just feeling it so we decided to learn more about where honey comes from. Honey bees fly around to look for flowers. When they find them, the bees return to their hive and “tell” the other bees where the flowers are. The bees actually “talk” to each other by doing a little dance. They tell the other bees where the flowers are! Then many bees leave the hive to land on the flowers to suck nectar from them. Once they suck the nectar, they return to the hive to make honey. A hive can have one thousand bees living in it. The queen bee is in charge of all the worker bees. She is the biggest bee. We showed the yeladim many pictures of real hives and they searched and searched to find out which one was the Queen bee!
We listened to Flight of the Bumble Bee in class. We pretended to be bees and flew around to search for flowers. Once we saw the flowers, we went back to he hive to do our little dance o tell all the bees where the flowers are! 

Inside the hive, there are many holes. They are called cells. That is where the bees make their honey. Off to the art studio we went to start making our bees. We painted sticks yellow. Then added black stripes.  We will add wings, a head and eyes and our bee will be complete. Our “hive” in the kitah is under our tree. The yeladim glued on special paper that had small holes in it that actually looked like cells! It is just waiting for our […]

By |September 13, 2017|
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The Butterflies are busy bees!

We continued our Rosh Hashana explorations by focusing on bees and honey. We held a toy bee and flew it around, saying “bzzzz.” Everyone thought that was pretty funny – we got some cute giggles!

We did a fun bee finger play too.

(make your hand into a fist)

Here is the beehive, but where are all the bees?

Hiding away where nobody sees!

Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive

(take fingers out one by one) 1…2…3…4…5! 

Bzzzz! 

We read a book about how bees make honey in a beehive and had the chance to touch a piece of a real honeycomb. We each put out one finger and touched it gently so it wouldn’t break. It had a lot of small holes that fit our fingers perfectly!

    

Then we decided to make a big beehive in our classroom. We thought about what had the same shape as the honeycomb holes and had the idea to use egg cartons. All the children helped tape them onto the wall, bending down to put them close to the floor and reaching up to stick them high.

At snack time, we tasted apples again. We had something very yummy with them – can you guess? It was honey! We sang “Dip the Apple in the Honey” as we dipped and ate. Some children enjoyed dipping their finger in the honey too and noticed it was sticky. It was so sweet and delicious. We can’t wait to eat honey on Rosh Hashana to have a sweet new year.

After that, we thought our beehive should have honey in it. We crumpled up yellow paper just like the honey we tasted and stuck it into each compartment. […]

By |September 13, 2017|
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Apple explorations in the Butterfly class

On Thursday we came into the classroom and remembered what to do – the first thing is to hang up our jacket and backpack and put our water bottle on the shelf. Then we go right to the green rug for circle time. After we sang our davening songs, we learned that Rosh Hashana is coming! We do so many things on Rosh Hashana so that we’ll have a sweet new year. One of the things we do is dip apples in honey because they’re so sweet and delicious. We sang “Dip the Apple in the Honey” as we passed around two apples to touch and feel. We noticed that one was green and one was red and they were very smooth. We also looked at a picture of an apple tree and compared it to the tree in our classroom. Something is missing from our tree – apples!

We put on our smocks and dot painted apple shapes with red, green, and yellow dot paints. We said “dot dot dot dot” while we painted and made some very realistic looking designs. Come see our apple tree!

At snack time we had the chance to choose to taste red or green apples. Some children decided not to have any, but lots of children had seconds and thirds! It was so sweet and crunchy. Noam liked the green apple. Maggie liked the green one too. She said it tasted good. Liat liked the red kind, and Yair liked both. Izzy said the green one tasted like apple.

Friday’s Shabbat celebrations were so exciting!! First, we went to the shul for a singalong with all […]

By |September 8, 2017|
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Our bellies were very full today! in the Sunflowers

We continued discussing apples in the kitah, so it was time to start tasting them. The yeladim wanted to taste the yellow apples first. “Yummy”, they said. Then they wanted to taste the green apples. They noticed that the green apple was a lot harder to bite into. Last but not least, the red apples were eaten. ” It’s sweet! ” they yelled. It was so interesting to see how the yeladim reacted to the taste and texture each apple. The really observed the taste and texture.

After the apple tasting, we wanted to find out which apples were each child’s favorite. A chart was made and put  in the middle of the carpet. Each child was called upon to pick the color apple that they felt tasted the best. Red, yellow and green paper apples were in three piles in the middle of the carpet. They picked the paper apple that they liked the best. They then put glue on their paper apples with a glue stick and placed the paper apple in the matching color column. We looked closely at the columns of apples. We counted the number of apples in each column. We looked carefully to see which color apple had the most votes. Guess what!! We had a tie! Four yeladim loved the green apples and four yeladim loved the red. Three loved the green. We had so much fun doing this activity!

In the afternoon, the yeladim asked if we could dip apples in honey. Why not? So the yeladim first dipped their fingers in the honey. “Mmmmmmmm”, was all that we heard. “Is the honey sweet or salty?”, we asked. They thought about it. “Lets taste something else.”, we said. […]

By |September 8, 2017|
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