Shabbat Blessings

The Thursday Levana class celebrated Shabbat together today. Earlier, the children had made individual loaves of challah. Some contained raisins, and some were topped with cinnamon sugar or honey. As we enjoy these times together, we notice how fully the children participate in the preparations for Shabbat and in singing the blessings together. Eliana did a wonderful job leading us as Shabbat helper.

Un-Tying Tie-Dye

Today the Tel Aviv class untied and cut the rubber bands on their tie-dye to unveil their beautiful tie-dye creations! Taking the rubber bands off the shirts could be done either by cutting or by untying the rubber bands. Both of these take lots of concentration and fine motor skills.

The Tel Aviv class was SO excited to see their finished product, but for many the number of rubber bands was frustrating. The Tel Aviv kids knew that teachers weren’t going to help them so much with this task, but they were determined to complete it. Hannah worked for a very long time untying every single rubber band. Lily figured out how to cut them fairly quickly and then she helped Eliza and Eliza then helped Ezra! It was great to see how they each were able to help each other to accomplish what was a fairly challenging task. Yet when the task was completed a beautiful orange shirt was reveled and we are so excited to wear them at Shalom Day next week!

The Rubber Band Challenge

After the Tel Aviv class finished taking all their rubber bands off their tie-dye we got a geo-board out to further explore playing with rubber bands. Hannah, Lily and Eliza quickly got to work filing the geo-board with rubber bands and after a minute or two they whole thing was filled and the game was done.

I then gave them a challenge..to create a Jewish star on the geo-board. The girls LOVED the challenge and felt as though it was pretty hard to do. They experimented with the geo-board for awhile but it wasn’t turning out right. Then Eliza went to the art table and started drawing Jewish stars. Step by step we looked at the points and how they compared to each other and the geo-board. We slowly pieced together one triangle and then we flipped the board upside down and they quickly figured out how to do the second! It was so neat to see the many steps in their problem solving skills. It was a fun challenge that used real critical thinking skills.

 Nice determination ladies! Job well done!

Art in the Woods!!

So today with, "Art and Sasha" we went exploring in the woods!! The goal of the woods was to find sticks and rocks and build with them to create outdoor sculptures.  Lucy found many sticks and built a princess tower.  Adam and Elias found sticks and rocks and decided to explore rather than build which was wonderful as well.  The neat thing about rocks is that underneath them you can find...WORMS!!

  They found short worms and long worms and baby worms and a few rolly polly bugs as well. Elias loved collecting and comparing them and sharing his observations. We talked about how the dirt is their home and how sometimes dirt feels cold because its wet and worms need the water in the dirt to survive. At the end of the day we dug a shallow hole and buried our handful of worms. 

It was a beautiful day to be outside and exploring, we had a blast!

Let's Get Messy!

As a way to recap the year, Sauci took each Haifa student aside and asked them what their favorite art project and topic of discussion were throughout the year. While we got a lot of different answers, it was pretty clear that a big favorite was shaving cream on a table. So guess what we brought out today?

On top of making our tables spotless, almost all of the Haifa students spent time running their fingers through the squishy shaving cream! Many enjoyed it so much they had to make an outfit change! My mom always said that if you don't come home messy you didn't have enough fun. I think that coming home in another outfit means the same thing!

-Alison and Sauci

Innovation in MOTION

The Rainbows had their last visit with Dancing Nancy this morning.  She got them moving and shared her hula hoops with them.  They enjoyed walking, jumping, running, and crawling through the path she made across the floor.  After a while, Nancy noticed that the kids were doing something different.  They came up with a way to scoot along the floor inside of a hoop.  Nancy was excited about their innovation.  The kids are full of ideas!

Innovation in MOTION

The Rainbows had their last visit with Dancing Nancy this morning.  She got them moving and shared her hula hoops with them.  They enjoyed walking, jumping, running, and crawling through the path she made across the floor.  After a while, Nancy noticed that the kids were doing something different.  They came up with a way to scoot along the floor inside of a hoop.  Nancy was excited about their innovation.  The kids are full of ideas!

Innovation in MOTION

The Rainbows had their last visit with Dancing Nancy this morning.  She got them moving and shared her hula hoops with them.  They enjoyed walking, jumping, running, and crawling through the path she made across the floor.  After a while, Nancy noticed that the kids were doing something different.  They came up with a way to scoot along the floor inside of a hoop.  Nancy was excited about their innovation.  The kids are full of ideas!

Make Your Own Project!

This week, to continue with our science experiments, the Haifa class came in to see several different optical illusions on the table. We studied them carefully and tried to find different ways to look at the same picture. We had a lot of fun trying to see if everyone else could see what we were looking at.

Ryan really enjoyed these activities. He liked looking at them in different ways and seeing if people could see what he did. He liked it so much, he decided to make his own! We worked very hard to make his own  to take home! He was very proud of his work, and it was so great to see his dedication and focus on something he cared about!

-Alison and Sauci

Will It Fit?

Today we decided to pack a snack and have a picnic, followed by a walk in the woods.  We each received an individual bag to fill with snack.  We estimated how much snack would fit in our bags.  We learned that two enormous handfuls of crackers will not fit in a small baggie.  It was a nice concrete lesson on volume and capacity, and a beautiful day for a picnic!

An Early Birthday

What could be more fun than celebrating your birthday a month early?  As our friends won't be together in July, Madison celebrated her birthday today with a little help from her Mom Karen and her sister, Mia! Karen read us a book and then Madison read us a book all by herself!  For Mia it was a toss up between the book and pulling off her sock!  Happy Birthday Madison!

Thank you Dancing Nancy

 It's hard to believe that today was our last session with Dancing Nancy. Fortunately we still have Shalom Day to look forward to and to share with Nancy. Thank you so much Nancy for working and playing hard with us all year. The children are clearly excited about performing our new dances on the last day of school.  Today they continued to work on regulating their body movements by freezing along with the music. They also had to follow multi-part directions as they practiced their dances. Using the hula hoops is always a hit, and today was no exception. It was great to see all the creative uses of the hoops that the children discovered. Maria and I tried to use them the old
fashioned way but without much
success. We need more practice.
Thank you Nancy for another great year!

 

Happy Almost 6th Birthday to Eric

 Oh the Places You Go, by Dr. Seuss, has been a big hit in our class this year. We even have the book in Hebrew. During our trip to Israel we compared and contrasted the books in Hebrew and in English. Today was English only. As much as we all enjoyed the book, the mango and strawberry smoothies were the real hit of the morning. Thank you Lisa Kaplan for coming in to read, for making smoothies with the children, and for celebrating Eric's almost birthday with us.

Welcome Avital Hain

We have been very fortunate to have Avital Hain, daughter of Sandy Hain, helping us in the Kohavim class until the end of the year. This has been Avital's second week with us, and we all have enjoyed having her in the class. The children love to sing and play games with Avital such as Herman the Worm and Follow the Leader. Ask your children to demonstrate how we play these games in class.  They are big hits and attract the interest of all of the children.  Maria and I also asked if we could have a turn playing.,
Thank you Avital for your enthusiasm, hard work, and dedication to our children. Thank you also for all the tie dying you did. None of us expected that you would have to do double duty on that one!

Our Last Shabbat Helper Of The Year

Sami was our last Shabbat Helper for the year. She calmly helped to recite the blessings over the candles, grape juice, and Challah. She was very eager to look in her backpack and find the Challah. She then excitedly walked around the classroom, proudly showing her classmates and teachers "The big Challah" that she brought. Thank you Sami. It was delicious!

Fun With Floam

Cutting, molding, shaping, squeezing, squishing, breaking, patting... The Rainbows had a lot of fun exploring with this bumpy substance known as floam. Ask your child what his or her imagination created since there were definitely some interesting foods and animals that emerged.

Sensory Fun!

The Wednesday Lunch Bunch children really had fun making experimenting with red and blue water colors to create purple playdough!  They mixed and measured all the ingredients together and add some cinnamon, too!   At the end of the day the children were invited to pack a little bit of  purple cinnamon playdough to go!


 

Happy School Birthday Teddy Fox

 Yesterday we celebrated Teddy's school birthday. His brother Sam was able to come in a little early and play a friendly game of basketball. As one can see everyone welcomed him with open arms. Teddy selected two of his favorite books, Duck Rabbit and One. Josh Van Dam has also recently read Duck Rabbit as well and we all enjoyed listening to it again. So what do you think is it a duck or rabbit??  One is a classroom book and a great reminder of our responsibility to stand up against injustices.

Thank you to Sam and Stephanie for coming in and sharing your time and talents with us. Thank you Teddy for sharing mom and Sam. We were sorry to hear that Teddy Fox's sister Sally was not feeling well and couldn't join us for his school birthday. Luckily Teddy will be participating in the summer program and he hopes to have Sally and Dad in for reading time and perhaps an another celebration on his actual birthday.

Tie-Dye Fun!

Today the Tel Aviv class tie-dyed out shirts for Shalom day!! After our week long investigation of color mixing, the class had the daunting task of picking a color for the T shirts. We had every member of the class pick the color they wanted. We had two votes for blue, purple and orange. Then we had another vote where you had to pick one of the three. After that we had a third vote that was a blue-orange run off and the winner was…ORANGE!

Before school today Hannah and I experimented with mixing red, pink and yellow together to make different shades of orange. We tested them after we added a bit more of a color.  We mixed red and yellow and I would ask Hannah what color it was and she would respond Orange. Then we mixed pink and yellow and I asked her what color it was and it was also orange! It was neat to look at all the shades of a color and we found it was very tricky to make the exact same color two times in a row. We picked two oranges we like and used them as tie-dye for the class.

Tie-dying was great fun and the class loved going outside for some messy art fun. Each child had their own technique some would stand back and spray their shirts while the shirt rested on the ground and others would hold the shirt in their hand and very carefully add the paint to cover any and all white spaces. Since we had two different oranges they had to take turns to make sure that each kid got a chance with both colors. It was extra hard to take turns when there were three kids and two bottles. Even though their excitement they were able to wait and they enjoyed watching their friends tie-dye as well.  Tomorrow we will take off the rubber bands and see the neat patterns and designs we have created.

We can’t wait!

Hanging up Art!

Last week the Tel Aviv class decorated coffee filter to explore color mixing while creating flowers. I have been meaning to put them up on our bulletin board under the sky, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. This week I mentioned that I was going to do it and Eliza asked, “Can we help?”  So Eliza, Hannah, Molly, and Lily set to work creating a beautiful bulletin board. They used tacks to post the flowers under the sky. I loved how the girls not only used the tacks for practical purposes but created patterns and designs with the tacks to make them decorations as well, they became part of the art rather than something that was holding up the art. The girls were so proud of their art and their work beautifying our classroom. Thanks so much Ladies! We couldn’t have done it better ourselves!

A Shavuot Feast!

So even though it's been awhile, I thought I'd share about last Friday's Tel Aviv Shavuot feast! In my life I have never really known much about or celebrated Shavuot until I found myself in Venice wondering around a deserted Jewish quarter on Shavuot two years ago.  When I knocked on the door of the Synagogue I was confused on why it was closed. A religious man opened the door from the restaurant next-door labeled "Kosher Pizza" and asked me if I was Jewish. I saw that it was a Chabad house, an organization I was familiar with, and my friend and I replied yes and went on in. Inside there were Jews from all over the world studying Torah and eating Italian pizza and cheesecake. It was a feast!  We  ate and studied together and discovered we knew many people in common through Brandeis. This was a meaningful Shavuot experience to me and a story that I shared with the Tel Aviv class.

 Since Israel is the land of "MILK and honey" we celebrate Shavuot by eating dairy products. We made our own pizza and the sunshine class shared their cheesecake with us. We sat around the table and shared memories of the stories from the Torah we had learned about throughout the year. Together the class pieced together both the story of Purim and Passover. It was great to see how many details they remember! I also loved observing how one child would remember something that would trigger another memory for someone else. It was truly a group learning experience. Last but not least, Ezra proudly shared the story of Jonah, one that he knows well because of his own brother named Jonah.  
Through our sharing of sorties both past and present and our delicious homemade dairy treats I felt like we were true Torah Scholars and that meaningful Shavout experiences can be found everywhere, even in a four year old's pre-school classroom.  

gimme a beat!

On Friday, Noah Sussman could not contain his excitment about the upcoming weekend.  Noah was going to visit his Grandma and she was taking him to get an IPOD!!!  He loves music and dancing and could not wait for Saturday to come.

Today, with IPOD in hand, Noah arrived full of pride and excitement to share his newest treasure.  Noah was generous about letting his friends listen to his music and it was obvious that he had already learned how to turn it on and off and how to take care of such a special item.  Each time Noah stopped using it, he would turn it to the off switch and then put it carefully in his bag.  Great job with your new responsibility, Noah!!

building a yellow house

Noah Sirlin loves to climb to the top of the play structure.  He is able to do it carefully and swiftly and rarely needs help adjusting himself or getting down.  Today he said "Rebecca, I'm going to make you a yellow house."  He climbed to the top of his "ladder", hooked his underarms over the top rail and began moving his fist up and down and back and forth like a hammer.  What a great imagination...and... how did he know I've always wanted a yellow house!!!

Early Morning Giggles

Nathaniel came in yesterday with a new joke to share.

Why did the football player go to the bank???

Any guesses??? Don't look below YET...



Answer: back quarter his get to... ( backwards)

Helping Hands

Sometimes children elect to stay in after dismissal and right before lunch bunch. I always welcome their participation in lunch bunch set up if they want. Today Sam elected to stay in. I asked Sam what we needed to do to finish setting up for lunch. The tables were set, but there was something missing. Sam responded we needed napkins, then quickly asked, "How about we use place mats?" and then asked, "How about I write names on them so they know where they are sitting?"

Off he went checking the lunch bunch list and writing all the names of classmates who stay on Tuesday. He then proceeded to place them on the table. As he was placing the mats down and he came to Teddy Fox's name, he said he knew Teddy Fox liked to sit next to Mia for lunch bunch and he had to move a placemat because with three on the table it was too crowded. As children came in for lunch he explained how he set up the placemats knowing who usually sits with whom. Mia was quick to thank Sam for his thoughtfulness.  After all the placemats were set, he said, "Miss Maria you don't have one, you need one." So I wrote my name. Thank you, Sam for your helping hands and your thoughtfulness towards your classmates and me.

My name is "Rosie"

 Last week we had a new visitor for early morning fun. Rosie is in the Rainbow class. She came early because her sister had a play about the very same time as her Rainbow class. I think the first thing she noticed were the flowers set up at the water table. She was quick to share that mommy loves flowers. We had a birthday celebration in the Kohavim class so the cupcakes were set up with pipe cleaners for pretend candles. There were bears, frogs, and butterflies. Rosie shared that she wanted to fill the bear cupcakes and off she went filling each bear. When Rachel came in she helped as did Teddy Friedman when we needed more candles.

Daddy made Rosie two ducks with the floam, but when daddy left, Rosie said, those ducks needed a 'pond', so she smashed the floam and put the ducks right on top. It was just big enough for the 'small' duck. All the flowers inspired Rosie to say she wanted to make a card for mommy. She asked me to draw a picture of her mommy. We talked about how I could do that. What did I need to do? What shapes would I need? She said I needed a face and it was a circle. Then mommy needed eyes, nose, mouth, body, hands, feet and hair. Mommy's hair is 'curly' so she needed curly hair. Then mommy's card needed "Rosie" as well.

After the picture of mommy and Rosie was drawn, she asked me to please write "Moma" and "Rosie". Then the card needed a car and a train track.. It was so much fun to talk to Rosie and share in her excitement and story telling. Thank you for coming. I hope you come again to share in more morning fun.

Displaying the colors of our world!

The children were more than happy to take part in displaying their beautiful art work!
Last week we spent a lot of time exploring color with food coloring and a variety of paints.  The children created the world, colored pasta, tie- dyed coffee filters, made tie- dye challah and the list goes on ...

Today they used push pins to arrange the colorful flowers and the big round world.   The children created a beautiful bulletin board in
the Tel Aviv classroom!   When you get a chance check it out.

  

Look I lost my first tooth!!!

 Jesse came in last week to announce he lost his first tooth. The tooth fairy came and brought him and his sister a gift for this momentous occassion. Jesse was happy that the tooth fairy remembered his sister as well.

Rainbows Hard At Work

The Rainbows had a very busy morning and were involved with many different activities. The children played with rice, painted, used hammers and pliers with golf tees, and played in the kitchen area. Ask your child which activity he or she liked best?

Play dough to go...

The children enjoyed mixing and measuring the ingredients to make raspberry/lemon scented play dough!  When they were done kneading and playing with the dough we packed some play dough to go!
 

Milestones!

Jake was bubbling over with big news this morning!  I was standing over by the monkey bars as he walked onto the playground!   When we made eye contact he said with great pride, "Lauri I have brand new tie shoes and I can tie them all by myself!  Do you want to see?"   "Yes please show me!"   I asked him if his sister Emma or his Mom showed him how to tie?   His response, "No I taught myself!"  Jake proceeded to show Alison, Sauci and some of his friends how he can tie his shoes!  He must of tied and untied his shoes 20 times before it was time to go inside.


The conversation between Zack and Jake was priceless!   Zack: "Jake are you going to wear your tie shoes tomorrow?   If you do I will wear my green tie shoes.  Jake will you call me and tell me if you are going to wear your tie shoes?"   Jake said, "Well I don't know, I have to ask my Mom.  I don't know, because I don't want to get them dirty."    Zack said, "I really hope you call me!"   Jake's response,  " I hope I remember so we can wear our tie shoes together!"   Zack sighed,  "I hope you do!"

Jake thanks for sharing your big news with your teachers, classmates and friends!
Congratulations!
 

Getting the moves down...

The Rainbows spontaneously broke into song and dance this morning.  They were singing Uga Uga, which is a Hebrew song that Rohan taught the class some months ago.  The kids will be doing their dance at the Shalom Party.

Click the link below for a sample of their dancing skills...
***
Uga Uga - impromptu rehearsal
***
We hope to see you at the Shalom Party next Wednesday at 10:30am.

Unicorn Pajama Day

Thursday Shabbat

 

On Thursday the Levana class again celebrated Shabbat, this time with Micah leading us in the blessings.  This week the children made individual loaves of challah from dough that we started on Wednesday. We decorated bags to hold the challah and shared the loaf that we had made for the class. The children are learning that Shabbat is a special time of rest with family and friends, and that we enjoy special stories, music, and blessings as well as our challah and grape juice.

A Gift for the Confirmation Class

The Tel Aviv children are expert challah makers.  This Friday they were charged with an extra responsibility:  making a challah for each of the 10th graders who would be confirmed on Shavuot on Saturday night. What a wonderful way to connect our youngest TBS students with some of our oldest. As you can see, the confirmands were delighted to receive this gift from the Tel Aviv class.

Thanks to Rabbi Todd for capturing the moment on video!

A Gift for the Confirmation Class

The Tel Aviv children are expert challah makers.  This Friday they were charged with an extra responsibility:  making a challah for each of the 10th graders who would be confirmed on Shavuot on Saturday night. What a wonderful way to connect our youngest TBS students with some of our oldest. As you can see, the confirmands were delighted to receive this gift from the Tel Aviv class.

Thanks to Rabbi Todd for capturing the moment on video!

A Gift for the Confirmation Class

The Tel Aviv children are expert challah makers.  This Friday they were charged with an extra responsibility:  making a challah for each of the 10th graders who would be confirmed on Shavuot on Saturday night. What a wonderful way to connect our youngest TBS students with some of our oldest. As you can see, the confirmands were delighted to receive this gift from the Tel Aviv class.

Thanks to Rabbi Todd for capturing the moment on video!

Thoughtful friend

Josh Van Dam and Teddy Post car pool every week. On birthday celebrations in the Kohavim class we provide children with opportunity to make something for the person who is celebrating his or her birthday, a birthday card of good wishes, bracelet, or picture. Teddy Post decided his friend Josh needed a crown to make his birthday celebration. He got the paper and off he went to cut and design his crown for Josh and placed it on Josh's head. Such a kind and thoughtful friend. Thank you Teddy Post.

BIG Bag of Dirt Fun

 Our planter was ready for filling. The bag was really big. With more team work we were able to put it on top of the planter. We started with asking the children what tools we could use to open the bag? We looked for tools we might find in nature and we thought  sticks might work.  This process was taking far too long so Eli came up with using scissors. Then came the process of taking the dirt out little by little. Finally all the dirt was out. You might want to ask your children what interesting 'critters' we have found in the dirt. We will be planting and just enjoy the sensory experience of 'dirt'. I wonder what discoveries we will make as we explore???