sunflower

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. […]

We had such a great time at the fire station.  It was so exciting to see where the fire fighters stay before they have to go on the truck. We loved looking the the trucks and we were able to walk around them and touch them.We gave them the cookies that we made, and they were so happy to receive them.

In this week’s Parsha Vayetzei, Yaacov felt that he needed to run away. He was very scared that his brother Aisav was going to hurt him. So he found a place to rest after walking such a long time. He put stones under his head, and fell asleep. While he was sleeping, he had a dream. A ladder was going all the way up to the Shamayim and melachim (angels) were going up and down the ladder. We actually brought a ladder into the kitah. The yeladim looked at it and realized that you can only go up and down a ladder. We practiced making a ladder with popsicle sticks on the table. Two vertical and then three horizontal. They then glued it on the construction paper. Yaacov was  added and then we stuck moon and stars in the Shamayim.

We explained to the yeladim that we do not know what angels look like. So the pom poms on the white paper represent those melachim. Next week we will see what happens if Aisav comes to see Yaacov!

Shabbat Shalom!!

We started learning the story of Chanukah during our circle time; how king Antiochus and the Greeks did not want the Yehudim to daven to their  Hashem. Yehudah the Maccabee and his army fought the Greeks and they won. When the Greeks left, the Yehudim went into the Beit Hamikdash and the inside of the building was destroyed. The Menorah was still inside, but there was only enough oil to light a flame for one day. So they lit it. But a great Nes (miracle ) happened. The flame lasted for eight days! That is why we light our Chanukah Menorah for eight nights.

We have so many wonderful items to prepare for our Chanukah celebrations. Lots of hands on tactile experiences! We began creating a beautiful candle holder out of paper mache. The yeladim mixed flour, water and glue. Then we dipped paper towel in that mixture and wrapped the towel around boxes. Once this dries we will be able to paint the box!

We began creating our gorgeous drip trays that will be placed under our Chanukiot. First we put everything we will use on the table and took a look at the items. We looked at each component and placed them on the lucite base. We moved them around here and there so we could decide how we liked it. Great masterpieces take planning! We did not paint or glue anything on at first. We just placed items here and there to decide if we liked how it looked.

Another day we painted the lucite base. over the next few days we will come back to the trays and put the rest of it together just the way we like. Wait until you see how […]

Chanukah is a month away but we started to experience some of the things relating to Chanukah this week in our kitah. The main ingredient to the Chanukah story is oil. We took the time to use our senses and get to know oil a little better.The first thing we did was to fill a test tube with canola oil and we looked at it. Was it opaque or translucent? We could see through the tube so it is translucent.

Next we asked what did it smell like? Here are some answers:

Tal  ” it smells like water.”

Eli ” it smells like flowers.”

Effie ” it smells like nothing.”

Anna ” it smells like nothing.”

Noam ” it smells like chicken nuggets.”

Mae “it smells like nothing.”

Then we all had a chance to touch the oil. it felt very “slippery” on our hands. And we could only see it because it was shiny and had no color.

We filled a second tube with water and placed it next to the tube with oil. The children felt they looked the “same.” We added water to our oil and noticed that the water stayed on the bottom and that the oil was on top. Even though we shook the test tube very well, the oil still was on the top. Oil and water ” don’t mix very well.” But we did notice that when they were shaken together we could not see as clearly through them.

Then we really started to have fun with the oil. We painted with the oil on colored construction paper. The yeladim noticed that the paper had no color on it even though it was being painted! It just looked wet!! We the added food coloring to the oil and painted […]

When we spoke about the holiday of Thanksgiving, we talked about the name given to the holiday. The children kept repeating the name over and over, faster and slower. They began to hear it as two words, thanks and giving. That was interesting. We asked why the holiday would be called that. Who was thankful and for what? The Pilgrims wanted to thank the Native Americans for teaching them how to plant food and how to live in the cold winters in America. So the Pilgrims made a feast to say thank you. In our circle time we talked about what we have in our lives that makes us say thank you. Anna is thankful for her baby, Sammy. Eli is thankful for his drawing pens. Effie is thankful for his new big bike. Mae is thankful for her bed. Noam is thankful for his Abba and Ima. Tal is thankful for his superhero toys.

We wrote what the yeladim answered on foam leaves. They then decorated their leaves with the corn kernels that we dyed last week. We hung our leaves on our “Thankful tree”, and it looks so nice in the room. We always have to be thankful for what we have.