Monthly Archives: December 31, 2018

Take a look and see how in reference to the Parshah of the week, Va’eira, which tells of the plagues (HaMakot) that Hashem used to punish Pharaoh and the Egyptian people, and our daily nature explorations, our lives are fully integrated with Torah and natural learning. It was so interesting to observe each day how when we were focused on the Parsha, the children incorporated information about other studies we were exploring, and as we spent time outdoors and working in our classrooms on hibernation and other inquiries, the children were bringing in their Jewish knowledge to our explorations. This is a seamless integration of learning.

We visited our outdoor classroom to see how things were looking since we last visited.  The sun was out and the temperature was moderate, so the children were happy to explore.  After reading the Parshah, we had discussed the obligation for the Jewish slaves to make bricks out of clay and straw to build Egyptian cities. We found an excellent video that showed a man making bricks and building with them in approximately the same primitive way as it had been done in Egypt.  When we went to the outdoor classroom, our children amazed us by building with pieces of log and mud from the garden!  They had extrapolated what they had seen on the video to their own environment and with the materials at hand.
 

We decided to take the brick-making further by bringing in plaster powder. The children felt the texture of the dry powder. Next, they added water, mixing it together. Finally, they poured the mixture into two rectangular plastic forms.  Within an hour the plaster had hardened. Creating […]

We have been talking about the winter and the weather conditions which occur.  We learned about the seasons from the book How do we know it is winter? by Molly Aloian.  The book introduced the idea that in the place that we live, there are four times of year where the weather and nature around us changes.  The book pointed out that there is a pattern to the seasons since they keep repeating.  Uriel made the connection that this is like a pattern you make with colors – red, blue, red, blue. Since winter is the coldest season, we asked the children what kinds of clothes they would need to wear?  Lauren and Lieba noted that they wear hats and gloves and scarves and jackets. A part of the book discussed the different ways that animals deal with the cold weather.  That led to more discussion and an exploration of animal behavior in the wintertime.

Many library books were brought to school about a vast array of animals – bats, frogs, salamanders, butterflies, and a variety of mammals – squirrels, chipmunks, skunks. The children learned that animals do one of three things –  adapt, hibernate or migrate.  We watched several videos on this topic on our new IPads including one about frogs. We first read A Frog’s Life Cycle by Mary R. Dunn.  It explained how the frog grows and develops and also how it freezes in cold temperatures and thaws when spring arrives. It was fascinating!

The children had a great time building caves and animal dens in which to hibernate  They needed to plan, problem and collaborate in order to build their structures.  They also enjoyed acting out animals migrating – bats, birds, and […]

Winter has finally arrived. We have had a little taste of it with the cold weather and even some snow flurries. Since there wasn’t enough snow to bring into our classroom, we decided we wanted to make our own snowy world. So we took out many different types of white materials that we have and got started making a winter collage

Feeling the different textures encouraged us to use descriptive words and to compare things to how snow and ice feel. What things are cold like snow? What things are sharp and bumpy like ice and frozen snowballs? What things are malleable and moldable like snow? What things can you use to build a snowman?

So then we decided to paint a snow masterpiece. We enjoyed using different strokes and brushes and adding different decorations.

Then we decided to hang up our artwork and name it. You can visit our snowy displays in our art galleries in the lobby and in our classroom.

When we went outdoors we made an interesting observation. The ice outside melted the yeladim were very excited to play with the water.

Shabbat Shalom!

Morah Yafit and Morah Fran