Mensch!!!!!!!!!!

It is so nice when a child offers to help a friend or teacher without being asked. Today when Mia was finished with her lunch, she asked me to help her seal up her ziploc bags. Before I could respond, Nathaniel said, "Mia give me your bags I can do it." He felt so good about helping his friend! About five minutes later I noticed Eric was under the table. I said,"Eric what are you doing?"  He said, "I am picking up the food and the gak on the floor."

Having respect (Kavod) for other people, caring for the environment (Tikkun Olam) are a few of the many important Jewish values we try to teach the children; Eric and Nathaniel acted like a couple of mensches today! Thank you!!!!!!!

Cooking 101 is a lot of Fun!

Lunch Bunch was a busy place today! The smoothies were such a big hit on Monday, the children wanted to make them again. As you can see it was good to the last drop!

We called a meeting to ask the children a very important question,"What are some foods you would like to make for Chanukah?" The following is a list of their ideas:

• Gelt
• Latkes
• Jelly doughnuts (sufganiot)
• Dreidel cookies
• Pancakes
• Menorahs you can eat
• Dreidels you can eat

On Wednesday we will make menorahs we can eat...I can't wait!

Rabbi Jay Visits the Tel Aviv All Stars!

Today Rabbi Jay stopped by to talk to us about one of our favorite holidays...Chanukah! He told us the story of Chanukah (the simple version):

• A very long time ago a mean King (Antiochus) took over Israel and told the Jewish people they could not be Jews (NO Shabbat, no going to Temple, no more studying the Torah etc...).
• Judah Maccabee and his family/friends used their words to tell the king, "WE WANT TO BE JEWS!"
• Antiochus did not listen, so Judah and his small brave Army stood up for what they believed in, and fought Antiochus and his big Army and WON!
• Judah and his family/friends went to celebrate at their Temple, and it was a mess. So they worked hard and fixed it up and made it even better than before!
• They went to light the menorah, and they only had enough oil to last for one day; but to their surprise it lasted for eight days!
• They decided to celebrate the miracle that had happened every year, so they declared a holiday-Chanukah!

Rabbi Jay also taught us a beautiful song, "In the Window" and wished us all a Happy Chanukah! Thanks Rabbi Jay, we want to wish you and your family a very Happy Chanukah too!

Holiday Update

Thanks to the very kind generosity of our Scientist families, the Scientist class was able to donate the cost of a kosher turkey to the Turkey Tzedakah Fund through Jewish Family and Children's Service's Family Table. We hope that all of you enjoyed Thanksgiving surrounded by the warmth of family and friends. And now, at least one more family was able to give thanks for the caring shown by our Jewish community during Thanksgiving.

With Chanukah just about upon us, there are many more opportunities to model the caring and kindness of giving tzedakah to those who are less fortunate. For example, there is a box in the atrium of Temple Beth Shalom to collect new pajamas and books for children at a shelter, given through The Pajama Program (www.pajamaprogram.org), which "delivers warm sleepwear and nurturing books to children in need." We hope you'll talk with your children about sharing the light of Chanukah with others.

A Shabbat Invitation

"Ellen, please come to my Shabbat," Daniel invited. This was no ordinary Shabbat dinner. Isaac, Jesse, and Daniel had set the table with a tablecloth, plates, cups, silverware and a challah covered with a leopard print cloth. Each item was placed just so. This is a favorite role play with this group of children and they are always looking for a guest to invite. Each time I attend, they welcome me with a more and more elaborately set table. What a treat to be invited to a Shabbat dinner in the middle of the week!

Havdalah

The Sunshines are learning that when we return to school on Monday, we gather together to celebrate Havdalah. We say good-bye to Shabbat, and hello to the possibilities of a new week. Using all of our senses, we bless the wine, smell the spices, see the flame of the candle and feel its heat, and hear the blessings. A member of each class helps with the celebration; today Hannah represented the Sunshine class. Gathering for Havdalah is one way in which we integrate Shabbat into the rest of our week

Hanukah Card Game

Hanukah is so much fun!

We played a thoughtful game of match cards with our friends.

Alana shows everyone the card she picked from the pile.















Hannah checks to see if the card matches any of her holiday symbols.

Is it the pitcher of oil, the candles, latkes, menorah, gelt or suvganiyot (jelly doughnut)?





















It's Sara's turn. She carefully picks a card from the pile.


Playing this game is an opportunity to practice waiting and taking turns. Children have to look at the details of the photos to see if it's a correct match. Does the menorah have all blue candles or many colors? Is the Hanukah candle green or yellow?

Once you've made this with your child, you may find yourself making it frequently for yourself as well- it's really good! It tastes like ice cream!

There's very little that can go wrong with this recipe,unless someone spills the whole thing. The main attraction to a small child-in addition to the ritual and delight of consuming the smoothie-is the process of blending various ingredients into a uniform consistency. Children are interested to observe how the ice,yogurt, juice and berries seem to disappear when blended, and how the resulting concoction becomes all bubbly, cold and thick.

The fruit smoothies were a big hit, everyone that tried it wanted more! Most of the children left at the end of the day with a, smoothie mustache!

Fixing our Menorah!

Our classroom menorah broke, the shamash fell off of the menorah. Aden quickly offered to help fix it. He said, "I know just what to do, all I need is some tape!" Aden your teachers and friends want to thank you for repairing our menorah! What would we do without you?

Discovering Ice on the Playground!

The children discovered ice on the slide this morning! One child asked, "Where did the ice come from?" Isaiah pointed up to the sky and said, "The ice comes down from the sky!" Jesse went on to say,"The snow comes down from the sky too!" Sam R explained, "The rain comes out of the clouds, and when it is cold outside it turns into ice."
The All Stars had a lot fun breaking apart the ice with a shovel, putting it in buckets, letting the ice go down the slide and holding it in their hands, with warm mittens on course! Now that is what I call fun!!!!!!!!!

Tzedakah for Chanukah

As we reflect upon our many blessings, we also think of others who may not be as fortunate as us. Last week we read a story about a poor family with little to eat. We asked friends what they think WE could do to help? We couldn't not make magical latkes for them to eat but we could...

" buy food, buy stuffed animals, buy something to drink, give cereal, my bed, give them something, give them a dreidel, give them some trucks, give them money, and give them a menorah."

It is a mitzvah to give to others and to share. Our kindness is growing...

I made a little dreidel out of ???

I made a little dreidel, I made it out of ???? Today we made a dreidel out of "clay", but we learned a very silly song about a dreidel made of many different substances ( seven total)
You may want to ask your children...
I can give you some clues....
1) you use it in the bathtub and wash with it
2) it melts
3) cows eat it
4) find it at the beach and we walk on it
5) dirt and water make this
6) you spread butter on it for toast
7) Smoltz ??? the last one...

We may try to make some of these in the classroom. I wonder what happened to these dreidels made of these different substances?

Shavua Tov

We say good bye to Shabbat and hello to a new sweet week!!! Jacob was our helper, holding up the candle. Teddy our morning meeting turtle greeted us this morning telling us of his nice Thanksgiving vacation. Sadie thought he may have celebrated Thanksgiving with his "turtle" friends. Friends eagerly shared their stories of having a dinner with parents, grandparents, cousins, JJ and poppy, brothers and sisters. They especially liked "desserts".
Friends are looking forward to the following events:
1) "daddy fixing black hawk"
2) "daddy's new car"
3) "getting new clothes from brother"
4) Chanukah ~ getting presents, lighting the menorah candles, and playing dreidel game.
We are looking forward to Chanukah celebrations in the Unicorn room as well.

Waiting Turns to be The Haifa Stick Person

Today was an exciting day for our stick person job! Jay is having his turn this week to be the stick person and after he is done, we are going to start the process all over again. Who can believe it! We started picking our stick person on the second week of school and now everyone has had a turn! That means we have now been in school for thirteen weeks. So come next Monday the New Stick can will be full again with twelve name sticks in it. Who will be picked to be the stick person as we begin the process again? All of the children waited patiently for their stick to be picked. And of course, we will continue to have Willoughby go home with the stick person each week on Shabbat. So stay tuned to find out what is happening with the stick person come next Monday.

Getting Ready for Chanukah

A menorah sandwich: A family activity

Spread your favorite topping (peanut or soy butter, cream cheese, jelly, butter) on a piece of bread. Add a carrot stick shamash (helper candle) in the middle and pretzel stick candles. Then comes the fun. Light your candles with raisins, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, Cheerios, or whatever little pieces you happen to have in the kitchen.

The Bell Ringer

It was Jesse's responsibility to be the bell ringer. School provides a chance for children to actively participate in building their own learning environment.  By finding opportunities for them to have control, and providing small challenges for them to overcome we work to create a positive environment that fosters responsibility, rather than one that produces frustration.  When it was time to ring the bell, Jesse rushed into position ready to accept the responsibility and perform his duties .  "Ding ding!"  Jesse rang and clean up time began. 

Thankful for family time

It is always a treat for the Unicorn class to have special visitors. We appreciate the gift of time that these visitors give to us. Eli invited his sister Rebecca in to read a special Hannukah story entitled "A Turn for Noah". In this story, Noah has a few mishaps in his efforts to spin a dreidel and take a turn lighting the Hannukah candles. His perseverance is rewarded however...
Thank you Rebecca for coming to read to us and thank you to Eli for sharing both mommy and Rebecca with your Unicorn friends!!

Something is just NOT right!!

Eli came into the Unicorn classroom and noticed something was just not right with the family picture gallery. We are not quite sure how they got placed upside down, but that was just not right. He quickly set off to place them right side up. Perhaps the Unicorn friends were thinking of "Silly Sally" who went to town walking backwards and upside down, one of their favorite books.

Welcome Friends!!!

Our room is finally set to welcome our Sunshine Friends who are our next door neighbors at school. We welcome our friends with a quick greeting passing our gourd around to introduce each other, and Tina reads us a book entitled "What is Thanksgiving". The Sunshine class treated us to some delicious cooked fruit pie (without the crust). Thank you Sunshine friends! We also dined on pumpkin bread, oranges, pretzels, and apples, with juice. It was quite a big snack. We are thankful for our many blessings of food and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Almost Ready

We are almost ready. We found the tablecloth (okay it is paper). It has no decorations. Not to worry- the Unicorns are resourceful. We set out to make make our table covering beautiful. The artists went to work placing fruit stickers and making beautiful designs. Capable friends set colorful napkins for our invited guests to come dine with us.
They are coming soon. Stay tuned!!!

Company is Coming... What do we do???

It is the day before Thanksgiving and we have invited the Sunshine class to come "dine" with us for a small snack.
We need to prepare our classroom for our feast. The Unicorn friends are eager helpers; moving tables and chairs together in preparation. What does it take? "Teamwork" and the cleaning is almost done. But we have no tablecloth for our table. What should we do?

Fingerpaint

World Cup 2014 Preview!

World Cup 2014 preview here at TBSCC! Here are photos of their practice. Eric and Sam P. organized a game of soccer with a few friends. Their foot skills were amazing; they kicked, passed and scored!

After the game, Eric was confident as I heard him say, "Boy, Lauri I'm good at soccer!" My reply was, "I know. Yes you are Eric!"

Creating Friendships and a Sense of Community in the Classroom

Once children enter preschool, having friends becomes a very important part of their daily lives. Children often ask to have play dates after school so they can extend their friendships beyond the school day. As children explore friendship, they will need to learn that it is a give-and-take process that doesn't always go smoothly. In school, we have been been using the theme of friendship to explore many aspects of what it means to be a friend. Learning to develop empathy, cooperate, and share are important parts of friendship.

Joshua came running over to me with some big news,"Lauri, Samuel is amazing!" I asked, "Why do you think he is amazing?" He looked at me with an ear to ear grin, his eyes open wide, moving his head slowly from side to side and said,"Look he made an eight with the wooden blocks! Isn't that great!" He was clearly so proud of his friend! Samuel was beaming with pride, as his friend Joshua was so kind to respect and acknowledge his creative work!

Smooooothies Delicious!!!

It was an "all boys" cooking day and we decided on smoothies. We looked at our recipe which had a couple of ingredients that needed to be cut; bananas and frozen strawberries. The frozen strawberries were a bit tricky, but with careful maneuvering we managed to cut them into small pieces to make sure they fit just right into our measuring cup. Friends waited patiently for their turn to put their fruit into the measuring cup and then into the blender. Teamwork was needed to pour the yogurt into the measuring cup. The ice and apple juice were added and our recipe was ready for the taste test. It was a unanimous decision, it was delicious and very cold.

We had some fruit left over in our plates to make more smoothies, but no more ice. What should we do? Friends decided it was alright to make smoothies with no ice. How would the smoothie taste? Some friends thought it would be "warmer" and some friends thought you might have to "eat it". Jonathan graciously offered to pour the smoothies for each friend for the taste test between the two recipes. It was decided it was definitely warmer without ice, but we didn't have to eat it.

Lunch bunch friends are creating their own cook books which are beautifully illustrated. Stay tuned for their cook books. Should you want an autographed copy, please let us know!!!

For the love of cars

Did you know that Matchbox cars were invented in 1952 as a gift from a father to his young daughter? It's easy to understand why almost 60 years later they remain a favorite. The satisfying weight, the detailed features, and the size make them a hit at school day after day. Today Matty was perched on the floor with a pile of cars, carefully arranging them into the class four-year-old format- a side by side line. He counted and recounted, making sure all the cars were there and properly arranged. Little did he know that as he played he was developing one to one correspondence, the skill of being able to count objects, which is not as easy as it might appear.

Concentration

Stringing beads on thin, stretchy, translucent thread was today's challenge. Would those tiny muscles be up to the task? It took patience and a lot of concentration, but they were! Jay, Josh, Julia, Isaac and Sam were hard at work stringing buttons, pony beads, large foam beads and a few heart shaped beads to create all sorts of jewelry.  Tasks like this provide two layers of learning by combining the need for concentration with the physical challenge of holding the tiny beads and stringing the thread through their holes.