The Ever-Curious Etzim

Today we took full advantage of the beautiful weather and headed outside for a snack in the Sukkah!   The Etzim children were extremely curious about the pumpkins and what might have been snacking on them.   Some guesses included chipmunks, squirrels, bears, and bigfoot!  

A Walk In the Woods

Today some of the Etzim class took a walk in the woods.  Some of the children were unsure what would be in the "woods."   Some children thought there may be wolves there.  Others were sure they would fall down the big hill.  It turns out we are great hikers, there are no wolves (but we did see a squirrel with an entire ear of corn!), and we definitely think the woods are a cool place to hang out and explore.  We collected lots of items from nature for our sukkah decorations!

Meet Our New Friend Madison!

Today on the playground we moved one of the storage sheds, which exposed a large area of dirt that had been beneath the shed. Rachel, Jacob and Eli decided to explore the dirt and after only a few moments Jacob shouted, "A worm! A worm!" Rachel preceded to pick up the worm that Jacob was pointing at and before I knew it Eli was shouting," Look Jacob its a lizard!" The three children ran to me to show me the lizard and soon had a large crowed around them who we eager to see their finding. The lizard was small and slimy and eager to crawl on all our Tel Aviv friends. Once the excitement had died down the trio went into the house and played house with their new-found lizard friend, now named Madison. She was the mommy to the plastic caterpillars Jacob had found on the playground. At the end of playground time we said goodbye to Madison and put her in a safe place so she could get air. It was neat to find a new creature on the playground. I was pleased that the Tel Aviv class knew how to be gentle with a new critter. We are excited to go back into the woods soon and see if we can find anymore new fun critters!

The Ants Go Marching One by One.....

This morning during early morning drop off Teddy Freidman and I found an Ant! We were quite excited about our new friend so we put it in a cage and put in some dirt so it could have a temporary indoor home. Unfortunately it escaped and when another early drop off friend became scared it got stepped on. So this meant that we had to have an "ant funeral." We went outside and were joined by our friends as they were arriving to school. We had a quick funeral ceremony which included a rousing edition of, "The Ants go Marching" and then decided that we had to go on an "Ant Hunt" to find more ants. We dug in the dirt but there were no ants or bugs in sight! The kids all started to ask to go into the woods to see if we would have more luck beyond the playground. We compromised and went to the area by the playground and searched for a bit there. Soon Max found a stump that was covered in ants! We looked at them and decided that was an ant colony that must live inside. We put a few of them in our container to observe and then let them out at the end of outdoor time. It was neat to see how one little ant could inspire so much create play. Because of this one little ant we had kids from multiple classes working together to grapple with nature and to examine animal behavior. By the end of the morning we had many kids who had all learned that it's important to be kind to all animals, even if they are just an itty-bitty ant.

Creating Habitats for Hibernation!

Yesterday on our walk the Tel Aviv class read the book, “Time to Sleep” and we talked about how different animals stay warm throughout the winter months. We then built a structure in the woods to create a habitat for an animal that might need a place to hibernate in Needham. The children loved finding big sticks and trying to figure out how to make them balance. The class worked on communicating where they were walking while they were holding the sticks so that the sticks wouldn’t hurt their friends. Soon we created a neat dwelling place for an animal or for a Tel Aviv friend! Each child took a turn sitting in our structure. They were all so proud of what they built.

Today we played inside and were still able to create structures for different kinds of animals. Using the wooden blocks and plastic animals children were able to make places so that our animal friends can stay safe and warm in winter. Although this task was done on a smaller scale, children had to figure out how to make blocks of all different sizes balance, which was no easy task. We will continue to talk about how we and different animals stay warm we are prepared for when winter finally comes.

Swooper Came Back!

Due to overwhelming demand Swooper Chad Cohen made another special appearance at TBSCC this week! Everyone enjoyed listening to Swooper sing and accompany the children as they made beautiful music with the instruments. The children stood around Swooper and observed him for quite a long time. Jacob and Olive offered Swooper, bird finger puppets as they thought he might like to play with them. How thoughtful was that! Mia took some great photos of Swooper, decorated his cage, and made him a card. Swooper showed his appreciation and joined us for lunch...His lunch included angel hair pasta with cantaloupe as a side dish.

What fun to be able to sleep all winter!

Aden and Eric are busy making "caves" in which their bears will hibernate. Many of the children were interested today in hearing about the different animals that hibernate. Once again we were surprised to find out how much they already knew about this animal behavior. We will continue this week to read books about hibernation, migration, and animal life in winter. Tomorrow some of the children are looking forward to making their own clay bears which when dry and painted they can take home to spend the rest of the winter hibernating in their dens.