Examining Faces and Art

During circle time on Thursday Etzim students had the opportunity to look and examine some self-portraits created by the 2nd and 3rd grade Mayim students. These students use the Etzim classroom in the afternoon and like the Etzim class, they are creating self-portraits using sharpies and watercolors. At first I showed them the pictures and they were amazed at how much they looked like real people. We notices that they each have things in common. Two eyes, two ears a month and a nose. these were things we had in our drawings too! We then looked to see what was different between different portraits. Some showed teeth, some drew a line for the simile while others drew lips. They had such thoughtful remarks and I could tell they were paying close attention to detail as they observed the drawings. Then we compared their drawings to the 2/3 graders and saw that they have lots of similarities too! All their  drawings are different from each other, and all the 2/3rd grade drawing are different from each other. We can observe and notice and do our best to create our vision of ourselves whatever that may be; all the while knowing that the big kids are still figuring it out too : )

Look! There’s Cantaloupe inside the Pumpkin!!

Elias was excited when he opened a pumpkin today only to see that there was cantaloupe inside! Cantaloupe? Really? Well, the color was the same, but does the inside of the pumpkin feel like cantaloupe? Well there was one way to find out….get a cantaloupe!

Elias and I went on a cantaloupe hunt and we were so excited that we were in luck that there were two cantaloupes in the upstairs fridge. We excitedly brought one downstairs and then Micah Rosin, Zach and Elias eagerly used plastic knives to cut up the cantaloupe into many manageable pieces. I was amazed at the focus and the dedication that all three boys used to cut the cantaloupe. We then brought the cantaloupe over to the pumpkins and examined the inside color, outside color, texture, seeds and taste of both the pumpkin and the cantaloupe. We found out that they are indeed very different and that pumpkin doesn’t taste very yummy unless it’s cooked! We took out the cantaloupe seeds and examined them and added some to the tray with the pumpkin seeds to so tomorrow we will see what they taste like!

It was so neat to watch how Elias’ connection of seeing orange in the inside of a large round plant led many children into an in depth comparison between cantaloupes and pumpkins. After we were done the three boys cut up the cantaloupe and handed bits out for all the Tel Aviv class to eat. As you can see, it was quite delicious!!

Same vs. Different

The Haifa All Stars are learning ways in which we are all the same and ways in which we are different. We have charted the number of persons in our families, the color of our hair and the kinds of apples we like. Some of us have 3 people in our family and some have 6. Some of us have blond hair and some have brown. Some of us are taller than others. Some of us have bigger hands than others as this picture shows Ilana and Jay tracing and coloring their hands to decorate our walls. We will continue with this theme the remainder of this week as we trace our bodies.  Stop by and see our charts and our painted foot prints. Stay tuned.