Monthly Archives: September 28, 2017

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 […]

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 […]

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!

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. […]

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. […]