Our last shabbat

Today was our last Shabbat as the Shamayim class.  Each Friday, we get a small piece of dough to form our individual challah.  We take it home and share it with our families (or gobble it up on the way to the car!).

Today, instead of making 13 challahs, the 13 Shamayim children worked together to make one class challah that we divided up to give everyone a piece.  What a special way to share our final Shabbat together - as ONE group!!

A bit of reminiscing

The TBSCC yearbook is beautiful and has captured many learning moments throughout the year of the children. Gabi looked through the book with the children and they all, with excitement pointed out people they knew as well as themselves. Abby, while pointing to a picture of herself proudly exclaimed "I have that shirt!!!" how cute? Of course she does! It was very sweet to see the children looking bak on fun times throughout this year at TBSCC.

Noah's Chester Song!

Lunch time is a great time to chat and visit with the children! As Noah was packing up his lunch box he asked if I wanted to hear a song about Chester? Of course I said "yes!" Noah made up a new silly song about our beloved Chester the raccoon! The song goes like this...

"Chester and the Dreidel"

Dreidel, dreidel ,dreidel,
Chester made it out of clay,
When it's dry and ready,
Chester flew a way!


By Noah S.
Age 4

Thanks for sharing your song Noah! Chester loved your song! Who could blame him, it was all about Chester!

Sophie's Birthday and the Costume Party Extravaganza

The end of the year has brought numerous birthdays and celebrations. At the beginning of

this week we celebrated Sophie S's birthday. At the same time, we had an end of the year costume party. After reading a book for Sophie's birthday and serenading her with a multilingual rendition 

of the birthday song, the Etzim busted into a spontaneous castle dance party! Projecting famous

fairy tale castles on the wall, we danced to the corresponding Disney songs. A fun time was 

had by all.  We are continuing our end of the year celebrations with Beach and Crazy

Hair day!

Our last Shabbat celebration for the year

Today the Keshet class celebrated shabbat together for the last time this year.  Isabella did a fine job as shabbat helper.  Just look at the concentration and serious expression on her face as she blesses the challah.  Thank you very much for your help, Isabella.

Shabbat shalom to everyone...!

Building together

The Keshet children found a very large basket of magna-tiles when they arrived this morning.  We saw various individuals and groups doing a lot of experimenting with them.    There were multi level buildings where each floor contained open space, solid towers, AND a superhero rescue from the top of a tower.  Last but not least, it seems that Ethan may have created a new wing for the Natick Collection!

Focus, determination, and teamwork were all evident as the children worked.  Physics lessons are learned in our experimentation as well.

The Tape Monster?

The question is...Who is the Tel Aviv Tape Monster? The second photo is the only clue we will give you!

Good luck!!!!!!

Creating a Banner!

Today we created our Shalom Party Banner! We discussed what we wanted to do in circle and decided to do hand prints in different shades of green because we already made green shirts and the song we chose talks about walking, "hand in hand." We had a great time today mixing different shares and tints of green, blue and yellow as each child got to create their own unique color to decorate the banner. Everyone enjoyed choosing their colors and watching them mix together and then taking a brush and feeling the wet paint tickle on their hand. Josh said that it was is first time painting his hand and he ended up painting it three times! Way to go Josh! It was so fun and everyone is excited to share it with you next Wednesday!

Shalom Party Prep

The Keshet class took a walk up to Simon Hall to become more familiar with this large space, and to practice some songs for our year-end celebration. We were surprised and happy to find that Nancy was there, already busy planning the music and movement for this occasion. She was happy to preview our number and had some great suggestions for us. Thank you, Nancy, for giving us some extra 'Dancing Nancy' time and for sharing your enthusiasm and joy with us all year!

A Shabbat helper for Thursday!

Since we've started celebrating Shabbat on Thursday as well as Friday in the Levana classroom, we get to have two Shabbat helpers each week!  Hillary was so excited to have a turn to light the candles, be the first to taste the wine, and touch the challah.  We love Shabbat so much, we get to celebrate it twice a week!

New uses for old slime!

We love to bring back out old materials and find new and interesting ways to use them.  The slime is a favorite in the Levana classroom, and the children have been finding new tools to use with it, and new ways of manipulating it.  This week, we had Hannah visit us one morning before heading down to the Kohavim classroom.   As I was making small strands out of slime, Hannah decided we could use it to make a tic-tac-toe board.  Hannah was very proud of herself when she won the game, and then we watched the slime mold back into a blob.

If you want to make the blue slime at home -- it's a quick and simple (though somewhat sticky!) recipe.  Just mix equal parts school glue and liquid starch, and mix away.

Hannah makes a line through her winning "o's"!

Twins!

Avi was very excited to change into his school t-shirt so he could look just like Tina.   He told her, "Look, we match!"  And they both posed for the camera!

Pillow Talk

One great thing about being a teacher is that you get to see friendships begin and grow throughout the year. Ben Gaffin and Sam Cornell have developed a very strong friendship that started last year in the Unicorn class. We can almost always find the two boys playing together in some sort of imaginary game. This morning I looked over and saw the two engrossed in a conversation filled with giggles in the book corner.
One can only hope that their friendship continues to grow as they do!
-Alison and Sauci

Making A Banner

The Haifa class spent the morning working very hard on our Shalom Party banner. We experimented with Sharpies and rubbing alcohol to see what happens when they are mixed on fabric. The end result is a beautiful piece filled with running ink! We traced quarters with Sharpies and then used eye droppers to drop the rubbing alcohol on the fabric.

We are very excited for you to see the end result next week!

-Alison and Sauci

"Ballerina group picture"

We are the ballerinas of the Haifa lunch Bunch. We wanted to write our own blog today. We all love to dance together at Lunch Bunch. We all go to different classes but we like to dance together at lunch. Next year is making new friends time, but we can always dance together. written by Aleeza, Harper, Abby, and Lizzie (and Maddie "I am not in the picture but I want to be included!)

Beach day

Etzim celebration week continued today with Beach Day! We got wet with water bottle spraying, got some "sun" on our towels, had in indoor picnic, a puppet show, and Reed's birthday! Finally, after much persuasion, we were able to convince the Etzim children that it would be fun to have a watermelon party OUTSIDE! What a great day!

Happy Birthday Reed!

Today we celebrated Reed's fourth birthday with stories from his mom, Sheri, and our Etzim tradition of circling the birthday family with song! We sing Happy Birthday in English and Hebrew, and we are now quite good at both versions! Thanks for he great stories, Sheri!

clean up clean up

Everybody clean up!  Bet you didn't know they could do this...

Not just a game

It might look like a game to you, but these Shamayim children are doing so much more than "playing".

ZINGO is a game that combines Bingo, Concentration, and Tic Tac Toe.  Each child has a 3x3 board with pictures. The dispenser gives out 2 tiles at a time.  The first person to see a match can snag the tile and put it on their board.

Sometimes two or three people are all waiting for the same tile.  Paying close attention to be the first to grab the tile is important. However, being resilient when you aren't first is equally important.  It is easy to say "I quit" when the game isn't going your way.  This Zingo group persevered through the let downs and remained respectful and kind throughout the game.

Each child gets a turn to move the tile dispenser.  Then, you have to wait for the dispenser to make it back to you.  Patience is crucial as it can take a few minutes to make it back.  While you wait, you have to pay attention to the tiles coming out so that you can fill your board.  So many things going on!  Great multi-tasking, Shamayim!!!

Sadie Comes to Circle

Good Morning

Pajama Day

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Shalom, Shalom!

Coloring UNDER the Table?!

Early on this rainy Wednesday morning Adam and Josie walked in to find me laying on the floor under the table and were so curious what I was doing on the floor!? They quickly noticed that I was putting paper up UNDER the table?! As more kids came this became quite the hot spot as four or five kids gathered under the table to stretch their arms up and color on the bottom part. Josie was SO excited, "Look Joshua, Today we can paint UNDER the table!!!" See this is how you do it...." It was quite a change but we quickly noticed that there were two many kids under the table so then we put paper on top! Then we had kids painting under AND on the table. So wacky! It was neat to see kids laying on their backs some sitting, some squatting, they each had a technique for how to color. It  was very fun and definitely brought some sunshine into the rainy day!

Sorting "Treasures"

The Tel Aviv class LOVES my glass "gems."  Throughout the year I have often brought in pieces of glass and they have sorted them by size, color  and texture. Each child has found his or her favorite and they play with their pieces as if they were treasures. This past weekend I had the opportunity to work on my art quite a bit and on Tuesday I had a whole new bag of glass gems to show the class. They immediately poured them on a table and started to sort. This time they found things such as rainbows and smily faces which allowed them to sort by "type" rather than color. Sometimes Micah and Zach assign values to the pieces and do trades creating their own sort of glass currency which I find extremely fascinating but is not based on anything I know about glass art. Although these objects aren't toys they are new interesting pieces that inspire curiosity and play. Lily and Josie were having the smily faces talk to each other as if they were dolls. So neat! It's great to see how much they can learn simply from a bag of shiny "treasures."

Tuesday is Tuna Noodle Day!

Tuna Noodle Tuesday! It was our last casserole of the year for Rosie's Place. Elias and Micah Rosin could not have been more excited to start chopping the butter and cheese.  They used their expert fine motor chopping skills to dice the cheese and butter into tiny cubes so that it would easily melt over the hot pasta. Later Zach and Micah Gladstone came and helped out. They were eager to use the can opener. Such strong kiddos! The casserole was made with care and love and they should be very proud of the cooking skills going to such an important organization!

What can we do with our Hands!?

There are so many things Tel Aviv kids can do with their hands to help them explore and be creative! In circle we brainstormed a few and then during playtime we traced our hands and then wrote something that we love to do on our drawings. It was neat to see each child's personality shine through their drawings and words.  Each child's tracing technique also great varied. Some wanted me to trace their hands, others wanted a friend to do it, some wanted to trace their hands all by themselves. Tracing a hand is a tricky skill because of all the curves and having to move your head in order to see what you are tracing! Also things really get tricky if you are using an hand to draw which you don't normally draw with. Either way the drawing s are a beautiful, and a great addition to our growing portfolios! 

Friends Helping Friends

The other day I was on the playground and I just watched what was a really precious moment and it just kept getting cuter. Way to go Micah for being such a good friend and helping Josie each step of the way! I'm sure she appreciated you getting the block, helping her on the swing, moving the block and then giving her a starting push. However, I know that most of all, she appreciated you being her friend and swinging right along side of her. These two were stuck together like glue for the rest of that outside time. 

Being a bucket filler can really help a friendship stay strong. 

The Stein Sisters

 

Today the Etzim class had a special guest for our pajama day festivities.  Mia's sister, Sadie, who is in Kindergarten, joined us for popcorn, reading, and some community room fun.   Thanks for joining us Sadie.  We always  love to see you!