Mixing Gak!

The Wednesday Lunch Bunchers enjoyed making gak. After we made fuchsia gak the children wanted to make orange too! Today we took out both colors of gak and I asked the children,"Do you want to mix the two colors together or should we play with the fuchsia at the rectangular table and the orange at the circular table?" Everyone said, "Let's mix them!" I asked the children if they thought the two colors were going to make a new color. They all were not sure what to expect. The children took a handful of each color and started to play.

I ask the children the same question after they mixed the two colors together and this is what they said:

Leo- "It looks like pink and orange swirl!"
Alana- " It is two colors in one."
Rachel- "It looks like yummy ice cream."
Molly- "It looks like pink and orange."

Vegetable Soup

Everyone loves a good vegetable soup, and this recipe teaches children to make a delicious one, starting with the dry noodles and fresh vegetables. The most interesting parts of this recipe for the children are preparing the vegetables, and observing how the noodles soften and the water turns to broth.

The biggest challenge was(believe it or not), for the children to figure out how to break the noodles into small pieces. First Ezra and Eli tried to cut the noodles with a plastic knife. Ezra said, "This is not working Eli!" Eli announced Ezra we are mighty cutters we can do this...Right?" They tried banging the noodles with their "muscles/hand" and jabbing at the noodles with the plastic knife. Finally Ezra had success, "Lauri I did it with my two hands!" Molly came over to the table and asked if she could help break up the noodles, both Eli and Ezra were more than happy to share some of their noodles with Molly!

We will eat the Vegetable Soup on Friday with challah, for a special Shabbat snack!

Dali in the making~

What do you think Mia saw first as she looked out the window?
Mia's artistic expression extended to her name, as well, using both colors to highlight it.
Mia had a vision of a big, thick tree trunk. And in Mia's beautiful world in nature, there MUST be a flower.
We can all look at the beautiful outdoors, and find our own beauty.
What a wonderful world we live in.

Rise & Shine- Early Morning Drop Off

Some boys and girls are early risers and come in to explore in the Scientist classroom at 8:00. Sometimes I am asked for "challenging" puzzles and other times, they immediately see an area they want to explore and create pieces of beautiful art.


Some boys and girls come every day and others come on their specified schedule as needed.
Today was Eliza's first day in early morning session. Eliza is in the Tel Aviv class and so is Rachel. Nathaniel and Teddy Friedman are Scientist. They worked cooperatively working hard and concentrating to connect all those rings. They were so proud to show me their accomplishments. It was time to go outside, so Eliza and Rachel (from the Tel Aviv class) wanted me to make sure to tell Lauri and Sasha that they wanted to have those rings in their class too.  We would be happy to share.

Meet Teacher Teddy and Teacher Hadley

When is bathroom time, not just bathroom time?
What could we do to occupy our time while we wait for everyone to use the bathroom? We decided to play a 'guessing' game.

First we needed to think of a category. ( Think of grouping ~Animal, book, or person)

Second we needed to give 'clues' so the other boys and girls can identify what the teacher was thinking. ( perhaps where it lived, perhaps describe it)

Sometimes teachers needed to give more than one clue.

Can we hear everyone at the same time?
What could we do so that everyone important ideas are heard.

That's right we raise our hands wait until the teacher calls on you to answer.

Glad to report we were able to identify all the animals and people and had fun thinking of categories and our accomplishments in guessing all the possibility of answers.

oh the Joy of being a Monkey

Mia, Josh, Sam, and Mattie wanted to be monkeys for a bit. It took a lot of concentration and upper body strength, but they did it.

Such fun...

Soccer is SERIOUS Business

It was team Scientist, the positions were set. Josh was the goalie protecting that net, Eric carefully positioned the ball, and he scored!
Oliver and Matty waited patiently for their turn and cheered their team mate on!!!
It was great to be a witness to the boys taking turns, high fiving, cheering each other on.

Scientist Faces

Say Hello to the Scientists of 2011-2012

Brothers

 

Taking a peek into the classroom, I was lucky to catch brothers at play.  Laughing, sharing, and playing together.  We are lucky to have a flexible environment where siblings can connect during the school day.

A Morning Shopping Trip

One of my favorite times of day is first thing in the morning, when children begin to arrive for the early morning class.  It's been a pleasure to watch as children from different classes play together.  One morning, an inviting Israeli shuk, complete with real fruits and vegetables, was set up, ready for imaginative play.  Nathaniel, Teddy, Jonathan, and Rachel were intrigued.  They weighed and calculated, discussed and negotiated.  What a great way to start the day!

" My dad told me!"

We were reading a reference page about dinosaurs today at lunch. The first question, was How do we know so much about dinosaurs if they lived a million years ago???

The first response was ...

"My dad told me." to which Teacher Maria asked. How do you think your dad knows about dinosaurs?

Answer: "His dad told him!!"

Answer" "They go to a place and look for fossils."

Answer: "They study about them."

Answer: " Scientist tell us."

Kids Taking Photos, Scientist Edition

To piggyback on the All Star series of Kids Taking Pictures, I thought the Scientists would like to share some of their recent photography! All photo credits should be given to the Scientists.

-Alison Simpson

Monkeys at school

Scientist friends were eager cross the monkey bars building strong muscles. Look I can go across backwards, sideways, with one arm!!!

Snow In May

We finally had some sunny weather. The Scientist lunch bunch friends decided it was time for some snow cones. We worked together using the Hawaii Ice machine, and added some Kool Aid mix. The selection was strawberry, lemon line, and grape. A nice refreshing treat to enjoy. We forgot to add sugar and it was quite sour, but friends quickly asked for sugar.

Step up to a new school year!

Today was "Step-up Day" for the All-Stars! The Haifa and Tel Aviv All-Stars who will be Scientists in the Fall next year were invited down to the Scientist classroom. The new Scientists had snack, asked questions and had free play. While some of our All-Star friends were downstairs exploring their new environment, upstairs the All-Star classrooms welcomed some Scientist friends! Everyone had a great time having snack, reading, playing and creating art together! Step up day was a success, AND everyone had a GREAT TIME!

Gak Attack!

Today the Scientists got a little messy a sticky with their latest science experiment: gak! We started with turquoise colored gak, and we watched it transform from glue-water and soapy water to colorful, oozy, icky gak! We had so much fun making the first batch that we decided to make another batch afterward, although that batch is orange.

Lucky for us the gak stays well in bags, and we will get a lot of use out of it!!

-Alison Simpson

Jamming Scientists

The Scientist Thursday lunch bunch boys really enjoy jamming. The stage was set, Jonathan and Lucas brought their "paper jam" guitars. Teacher Maria remembered the kerioke machine. Friends thought that they could plug in the microphones into the guitars to amplify the sound. Leave it to the designers of this guitar to ensure that one needed to purchase their specific amplifier sold for additional money. Not to worry however the Scientist friends were very resourceful problem solvers. With some trial an error they figured out where to place the microphones on the guitar for the same result~ loud jamming music. Enjoy...

Jamming Scientists

The Scientist Thursday lunch bunch boys really enjoy jamming. The stage was set, Jonathan and Lucas brought their "paper jam" guitars. Teacher Maria remembered the kerioke machine. Friends thought that they could plug in the microphones into the guitars to amplify the sound. Leave it to the designers of this guitar to ensure that one needed to purchase their specific amplifier sold for additional money. Not to worry however the Scientist friends were very resourceful problem solvers. With some trial an error they figured out where to place the microphones on the guitar for the same result~ loud jamming music. Enjoy...

The Scientist Nail Salon

Towards the end of the day, the teachers had a few requests to pull out a forgotten classroom prop: the puppet theater! Since Purim, the puppet theater has not been too popular, but today, instead of being a puppet theater, it was turned into...a nail salon! A few of the boys went around asking who wanted their nails done (in washable marker of course), and quickly set up behind the theater to get right to work. It was great watching the cooperation in such a completely organic creation! The statement of the day was "You can come to our salon so you don't have to go to the real thing!"

-Alison Simpson

Saying Goodbye

The Scientists have a different daily experience than the other classes at school. Since the Scientists are downstairs, they are not surrounded by the rest of the preschoolers, but they get the chance to have more interactions with other members of the synagogue community. One such person is Nate Karol, the administrative director of the religious school.

Nate has been working in the religious school office for three years, and today is his last day of work! He is off to new adventures, and the Scientists are both happy and sad to see him go. They are happy that he is going to do something new and fun, but they are sad to see our friend go. Nate says hello to all of our students if he sees them in the hallway, and they always share our special snacks with him if they have made something in class.



The class brought the card to him, and he was very touched.

Nate, you will be missed, and good luck in your next adventure!

-Alison Simpson