Guest Reader!

Mia was delighted when her Mom (Michele) came into the classroom to read one of her favorite books! All the children sat with their eyes wide open and listened attentively, while Michele read, Mr. Tanen's Ties. Mia, the book you chose was a great choice! I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to order a copy of my own and use my Amazon gift card. Thanks Michele!

Winter Wonderland!

Let me introduce you to TBSCC Winter Wonderland! The All Stars have been taking advantage of the winter weather! We have been playing basketball, collecting ice for iced tea, swinging on our belly, lounging under one of TBS finest,most comfortable trees, and the children have been creating awesome snow angels! Just think about it....Winter fun has only just begun!

friendship

To continue our theme of kindness and friendship, we read the story "That's What A Friend Is," by P.K. Hallinan. Before the story was read, I asked the children what were their thoughts. "What does it mean to be a friend?" This is what they had to say.......

A friend is: someone you like
someone you play with a lot
someone you like to be with a lot
someone you should help if they get hurt, ask if they are ok
someone you say hello to
someone you offer help to

The Scientist teachers wish you and your families a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year!!

The Shabbat Kiddush

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam, Borei p'ri hagafen

Praise to You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.

Each Thursday the Rainbow children gather to celebrate the coming of Shabbat.  They take turns leading the Shabbat rituals.  Jared took his job as helper very seriously, joining Tina in the blessing for the grape juice.  This weekly ritual adds rhythm to our week and the children always look forward to it.  Shabbat Shalom! 

Stanley Gets Stuck

It was a beautiful day in Israel and Flat Stanley went to a very unusual garden.  It was a garden for blind people.  Usually a garden has beautiful things to see with your eyes.  But this garden was different.  This garden has things to smell.  Boy did Stanley love the smelling garden! He was so excited, he hopped right on each one.

He smelled mint.  He smelled basil.  He smelled thyme.  He smelled lavender.

Next was the rosemary.  "I wonder how that will smell," thought Stanley.  He went over to the rosemary bush.  It was huge.  He climbed up.  Oops!  He fell right in.  "Ouch!  Yikes!  Those leaves are pointy!"  Stanley was surrounded by the strong scent of rosemary.  It was a little spicy and a little sweet.  But how would he get out?  "Ellen, help me!" he called.  Ellen rushed over and saw his hand sticking out of the top of the bush.  "Don't worry, Stanley.  I'll rescue you," said Ellen and she reached in and pulled him right out.

Stanley was so happy to be rescued that he did a little dance.  He flipped on his side, then on his head.  He was safe!

Lily's Birthday Celebration

We were so lucky to have two birthdays in one week. Today we celebrated Lily's school birthday; a very special day for Lily. Her Mom (Amy)and her big sister Ella(a Unicorn graduate)came into the classroom, to celebrate her 3rd birthday! Ella read the book Chicka Chicka A B C. It was a wonderful book, the rhyming text is great for developing phonemic awareness and encourages children to chant the story and read along. Ella taught sign language abc to the entire class! Lily was so proud of Ella!

Our friends get to choose how they want their birthday chair decorated, Lily chose princess Cinderella and her friends helped decorate it.
Thank you Lily for sharing your mom and Ella with us.

Roll the "dice" and identify the feeling!

Today we made "feeling cubes". This activity was a real challenge since the cubes started out as flat pieces of cardboard. Many of the children were able to figure out how to fold the cardboard into a cube. The direction for the activity was to draw a face on each side of the cube. Each face was to represent a different emotion. A sample was shown to the children, and a teacher was naturally available to help anyone who asked for it. Once the cubes were completed the children rolled them to see which face would come up on top. They then identified the feeling shown and made a face showing that emotion. Some of the children planned to use the cubes to house special treasures they had. If your child's cube is blank on one or more sides, encourage him/her to work on it some more at home.

I want to wish you all a great winter break. For those of you who are traveling, may your travels be safe and smooth.

Happy Birthday Max!!!

Tuesday was Max's 3rd Birthday celebration at school. Mom(Kathryn) and Dad(Adam) came in to read us Max's favorite book: Trains by Patricia Hubbel , it's a great book about trains giant engines snorting, puffing, steaming, pulling, rushing and huffing! All kinds of trains, from cabooses to hoppers and commuter trains to zoo trains....We sang Happy Birthday in English , Hebrew, Spanish and in the silly way: "Happy Birdle day toodle yooodle doodle.." Thank you Max for sharing your mom and dad with us.

Listening to stories

At school we spend a lot of time reading to children.  We read individually, in small groups, and to the class as a whole.  Children love routine, and reading is routine that the children look forward to each day.  We model the joy of reading by choosing books we all enjoy.  Sometimes children want to hear the same story again and again.  As adults we are quickly bored, but children learn from this repetitive process.  In fact, it is  a critical part of learning to read.

Balancing

What a tricky task to get the dominoes to balance, one on top of another in this arrangement. Working together, and with a demo to start, Dylan and Lily worked to create this three tiered tower. Careful hands, working slowly, layered the spongy foam dominoes in this pattern. What concentration!

Scientists Share with Each Other

Today Matthew shared a souvenir from Cape Cod. It was a moving water toy and sculpture. When he held it up one way blue water flowed along three wheels. Cool!

Jayden showed us a pink framed photo of herself when she was a baby. She looked very cute!

Jonathan shared a trick skateboard that fit in the palm of his hand. He made the skateboard twirl!

We also shared two more wonderful Frog and Toad stories and a delightful book about who friends are and what they do for each other.

Painting Space!

This week in the Scientist classroom we have been focusing on space. With the help of the lunar eclipse earlier this week, we have watched YouTube videos, read books, drawn pictures, puzzled, and talked about space. Today we decided that it would be fun to paint what we thought space looked like as a class. We started with five colors, and each child got a chance to paint something that they would expect to see in space.

The photos show a progression of what the paper looked like through the project, starting with the blank paper, then moving to the initial paintings, and ending with the finished product! We will be hanging the mural on the wall tomorrow!

Pictures for our Penpals

We now have penpals that live and go to school at a gan in Haifa, Israel. Today we each drew them a picture and wrote a note on our pictures. We are going to mail them to them with some other things when we get back to school after vacation. We will then wait to hear back from them. It is exciting to have new friends in Israel.

Off to the Swimming Pool

During choice time, Ilana and Julia were on their way going swimming with the trucks. After they got to the swimming pool, they decided to take the trucks into the water to swim with them. The trucks took them underneath the water where they saw more people. It was fun! Julia helped to write this blog while some of the other children looked on.

Happy Birthday Max

It was Max's school birthday! Max wanted a space shuttle birthday celebration. Friends and Max worked cooperatively to decorate his rocket ship with Captain Max at the helm and off they went to space.
Mommy and daddy came to read a book about trains; Max's favorite book!
More to follow....

Let's play an animal game!

Lunch bunch Tuesday friends had finished their snack and for quiet peace out time Naomi asked if she could play an Animal Game. She gathered her friends and the game was on....

You may have guessed it, it was a charade game.

Just like charades, the children thought of what they wanted to describe and gave clues to their friends.

Here are some clues...

1) Animal- "some of it is black, has pointy ears" What could it be?

) "Animal that is white. has ears sticking up, has a tail" What could it be?

3) "Thinking of an animal that has black and white spots" What could it be?

4) "something that has one BIG horn" What could it be?

Can you guess what animals friends are thinking of?? Please let us know. We will let you know, but please "guess" first.

First day of Winter Fun!!!

We were very excited to play in the SNOW!!! Some friends worked cooperatively to build our snowman. They said that we needed a carrot, and a hat. But we didn't' have one outside. What should we do? We did have some carrots, in the classroom, so we went to get it. Some friends wanted to "give" the snowman their hat, but we convinced friends that they needed to stay warm, and that there were some extra hats in the spare clothes bin upstairs.

Snack Time Hebrew

At snack time children are responsible to get their own snack from a basket placed in the middle of the table. They usually take two, three, or four crackers, pretzels etc. at one time and then two or three more as needed.
We had Puffins cereal and the children asked "how many". We said 10 was a good number of puffin cereal as they are very small pieces.
Eli carefully counted 10, but did so in Hebrew!!!

AH-aht, Shtah-yeem, Shah-losh, Ar-bah, Hah-mesh, Sesh, Sheh-vah, Shmoh-neh, Tay-shah, Es-air.

Let's learn some Physics!

You may not think of building with blocks as a way to learn physics, but you would be surprised how much we discover in constructing with inclined planes and cylinders. Today the Rainbows had a blast creating towers, tunnels, and houses. Sam G. found a clever way to be part of his block creation! They experimented with different kinds of bases to see what worked best. They built taller and taller towers until they toppled.

The children are learning to respect each other's buildings. It's okay to knock over your own creation, but not someone else's.

Noah - in Cookie form...

In the Rainbow classroom, we made some unusual sugar cookies. As part of our recent focus on the story of Noah and the Ark, we made sugar cookies in the form of Noah himself. The children worked as a team and participated in all stages - from rolling the dough to cutting out the Noah figures. We had some dough left over that we formed into circles and decorated with jam. Delicious!

Sensory Table Experiments

The Rainbows had some fun exploring the styrofoam packing peanuts that appeared in the sensory table last Thursday. Some of the animals Noah was planning to take on the ark had made their way into the light, fluffy stuff. As you can see, the peanuts were lots of fun to crunch in our fingers, to break into pieces, to throw in the air, and to stir around and around. The peanuts ended up sticking to us, so they made their way all over the classroom. It wasn't long before we decided they weren't the best choice for the sensory table. Nancy learns along with the Rainbows!!!

Sugar Cookies!

Who wants to make sugar cookies? Me, me, me.............. Even Faye wanted to make the cookies! While placing the cookie dough on the cookie sheet Sam R said, These cookies are going to be funny." Eric chimed in with ,"They are going to be awesome cookies!" Sam P said, "Unbelievable cookies they will be!"

Tomorrow the Lunch "Bunchers" will have the opportunity to decorate the cookies! We all can't wait!