It is so bittersweet

Friday May 31, 2013 was our last Shabbat together as a class. We are both sad and happy. We will miss being with each other and, at the same time, happy for the children as they move up another rung of the ladder to the summer and next year.

To mark the occasion we had a very special Shabbat breakfast with a scrambled eggs, watermelon, challah and juice. We all sat together, said all of the blessings, and listened to the final chapters of My Father's Dragon. It was a great celebration.

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

Shalom, Shalom!

Woodworking:"The Last Hurrah"

  
The woodworkers have put down their tools and  admired their work. The children  commented that they "liked the plans" while others liked to "hammer and saw." The experience was peppered with multiple opportunities to learn. One of our trial and error experiences involved the length of the nails that were required to connect 2 pieces of wood. The wood easily splintered so the nails  had to be thin which made it challenging for the students to successfully hammer. Everyone cheerfully waited and supported their peers until it was their turn and all of us enjoyed the process.

Look what Drew did

See the before and after pictures. No asked anyone to clean up. It was't really even clean up time. Drew saw the mess and decided on his own to do something about it. Alison and I didn't realize what Drew was doing until he was almost finished. Thank you Drew for taking the initiative to clean up our block area all by yourself. We all are very grateful and proud. You did a fabulous job.

A Future Meteorologist

Sam looked out the window this morning and asked Alison when it was going to rain. Alison suggested they look at radar, study it and find out exactly when it would rain. Here they found the radar on Alison's phone and discovered that it wasn't going to rain in the morning.

Star Wars Comes Alive!

Over the last few weeks, Nathan has come in to school talking endlessly about a Lego set that he and his dad have been working on. From our research based on Nathan's stories, it sounds like the Lego set was separated into many different bags, so different parts could be made at different times. He will come to the playground excited to tell us which part they had worked on the night before and which bag number he had finished.

At school, Nathan has been captivated by Legos as well. Today Nathan spent almost the enttire morning at Legos, building different types of Star Wars spaceships! From my (very) limited knowledge about Star Wars, I know that there was at least one Death Star, and from then on I was lost. Nathan took great care to work on each ship individually, taking color, shape, and size into consideration!

Great job Nathan!

-Alison and Sauci

Our latest book

Last week Alison and I decided that the children were ready for a chapter book. This is a big change from picture books that are a few words on each page and big, colored pictures. Our new book is My Father's Dragon, published in 1950. The pages have lots of words and every few pages there is a black and white drawing. We have been reading one chapter per day. Each chapter ends with a cliffhanger. When we finished Chapter 3 today several children said they can hardly wait for chapter 4, which we will read tomorrow. There are 10 chapters in the book. We hope to finish next Friday when we will read chapters 9 and 10.

Our newest old classmate

It was all smiles in the Haifa class today when Olive came into the room. Everyone knew about her cast and her wheel chair and they were ecstatic to see her. We established a few rules before Olive came in. First, only her mother can push her wheel chair. Secondly, try very very hard not to bump into her leg. The children wanted to know if Olive can bend her other leg. She showed them how she can do many things with her other leg. Jared asked Olive how she washed her hands before snack. Olive explained that her Mother had wipes for her to use. Olive will be in the Haifa class for about one hour every day. We are all learning a lot about broken ankles and what it means to be in a wheel chair. Thank you to Olive and Karen for teaching us some very important lessons.

Happy "Fake 5" Nathan!

Today we celebrated Nathan's almost 5th birthday! Mom and Dad came in to read a Richard Scarry book to the entire class. Nathan turns 5 at the end of July, so we made sure to celebrate the Haifa way during school!

-Alison and Sauci

Reflecting on a Busy Year

As crazy as it sounds, our year is quickly coming to a close. The Haifa children spent part of the morning reviewing and reminiscing about the year with Sauci. They spent time talking about things we have studied, songs we have sung, art projects we have crafted, and their favorite places to play. Spending time with each child to have an individual reflection is really great because you get to hear the child's own words, as opposed to a friend's, and you get to see what has stuck with them!
These "interviews" will come back before the end of the year!

-Alison and Sauci

"It's her dream come true!!"

The Haifa class came in to class this Monday morning to some sad news. Our friend Olive had to get put in a cast this weekend from a fall! As we were delivering the news, Sam G. raised his hand and said "It's her dream come true! She always pretends to have a cast and now she has a real cast!" We passed around a photo sent in from her parents and it is true, Olive has a great big smile on her face with her cast. While we are sad that she is hurt and hope that she gets better, the sentiment about Olive living her dream in a cast was echoed throughout the day.
At the art table, we chose to create a poster wishing Olive to get better soon. We colored and drew and decorated until the poster could hold no more color. It was sent home with Olive's sister Audrey at the end of the day. Olive, we hope that you get better soon, we miss you!

-Alison and Sauci

Spring Gardening

The warm weather has given us the opportunity to start gardening outside. One of the big goals was to weed the soil to prepare for planting. One weed in particular took a lot of hard work. After working together, we were finally able to dig up the deep rooted weed. In the last picture, Drew, Molly, and Jack show off the fruits of their labor by displaying the monster root that was unearthed. 

A Flowering Mount Sinai!

As the midrash goes, Mount Sinai was a rocky, desert mountain. Moses had been on top of Mount Sinai for forty days, and the day he received the Ten Commandments and the Torah from God, Mount Sinai bloomed with flowers. And this is why we celebrate Shavuot.
That is exactly what happened to our own Mount Sinai. We have spent a long time making our Mount Sinai from a bowl, packing peanuts, glue, and paint. Today, we helped our mountain bloom with beautiful colors just as it did in the midrash. We added Moses to the top of our mountain to get the full effect! We carefully found places for all of our real flowers to go to make our mountain as beautiful as can be. Stop by our room today or tomorrow before the flowers die!

-Alison and Sauci

Jumping Right In

The sensory is always a popular location during choice time. The teachers often forget to remove the cover, and the students often remind the teachers to uncover it, or uncover it themselves to find out what hides beneath the black cover. Today the Haifa children found the sensory table filled with oatmeal. And by the look of Ben's sleeves, the oatmeal seems to be a good choice!!
-Alison and Sauci

Building a Mountain...

There is no school on Wednesday this week. But why?? The Jewish people are celebrating the holiday of Shavuot. Shavuot is the day in the Jewish calendar that we celebrate receiving the Ten Commandments and the Torah. It is said that Moses received these from God on top of Mount Sinai. It is also said that on the day that God received these works, Mount Sinai bloomed with flowers from bottom to summit, despite being in the desert.
In the Haifa class, we began to build our own Mount Sinai! With the help of packing peanuts and a bowl, we created our own mountain that will bloom with flowers tomorrow!
-Alison and Sauci

Run! A Human!!

Today part of the Haifa class got to go outside for a second outside time. During choice time we asked the class who would like to go outside, and six of the students said they did! The small group allowed the children to have more room for their creativity to flow wildly.
Harper and Aleeza turned the entire playground into a fairy land. The fairies liked to play at night, but that is when the humans tried to catch them in jars, while they just wanted to flutter freely. They spent much of their time trying to find different hiding places to stay safe from the humans, and even enlisted the help of their Rescue Bot friends!
In the end, everyone returned safely to the Haifa class as humans, but you never know who or what will be fluttering around at night!
-Alison and Sauci

Birthday Central

Brett is almost five! Brett's birthday is on Wednesday when we do not have school. So he brought his family today to celebrate! His sister Ruby read a really silly book about a sleepy construction site, and the students enjoyed the funny faces and learning the different names of the equipment!
-Alison and Sauci

More Summer Birthdays!

As our year is quickly coming to a close, we are getting to celebrate lots of summer birthdays! Harper brought her whole family and a book that she had learned to read for the class. Memorizing and using the pictures to remember the words is a great pre-reading skill!

-Alison and Sauci