Making Applesauce

Today in the Shamayim classroom, we made delicious applesauce.  We had to peel the apples and to cut the slices in small pieces so the apples would cook in time for us to have it for our snack.  Harrison suggested we add cinnamon to our cooked apples to make it more "tasty."

Yarok Penny Drive!

Throughout the summer everyone brought in pennies for the penny drive! On Wednesday, we finally got to count how many pennies we all collected! It is a fun and educational experience to have the children guess how many pennies they thought we collected and then together we counted and saw who was close! Estimation and number sense are   good to start to develop at a young age and are concepts that will be further developed throughout their early school years. Additionally, it allowed us to talk about coins and how much they are each worth. 

Thank you to everyone for contributing to an educational experience as well as something for a good cause :) 

Also, thank you for a wonderful summer! I enjoyed getting to know all of you and your wonderful kids! 

Total we collected almost $5.00! 

Such a Busy Shuk!!

The Jerusalem Shuk was bustling as the Tel Aviv kids bought kippot, scarves, jewelry, books and more! It was fun to play and create so many different outfits with scarves! Everyone looked like they were really in Israel, well, kind of : )
The Tel Aviv kids also loved having the cash register filled with money and were able to use their math and counting skills to buy and sell items at the shuk! So fun! Come check it out for yourselves, the shuk will be open all week!

Math Moments

In every classroom at any time during the day, the potential for a "math moment" exists. The room is one big learning center where strands of mathematical discovery are continually being woven. Children learn to make sense of their world through everyday experiences. To stimulate a math moment, teachers use a variety of materials and ideas to create an environment in which children explore math concepts.

In the math/science centers there are board games, puzzles, matching and guessing games, pattern blocks, and collections of objects that give children opportunities to recognize numbers and build math skills. But math moments do not occur only in the math/science centers. In play, children construct cities (by sorting and organizing) and use words like long, short,small, and tall. At snacktime a child passes out one napkin per child and the same number of crackers for each person. When the class takes a vote on what stories to read or for some decision, children compare quantities.

Over the last several months the Tel Aviv children have been collecting, and counting the brown seeds they find beneath their feet in the soil on the playground. The children collect the seeds and place them in a bucket and/or bag. As the children find the seeds they count them 1,2,3... Often they will say "What comes after 12, or what comes after 20?" Today Noah asked me to help him count his seeds. He poured them out on to the plastic table and proceeded to count all the way up to 33 seeds, one at a time. At 19 he asked me, "What is next?" I said "20" and he took it from there. He was so pleased with himself as he counted the seeds! At the end of the day Noah put all his seeds back in his plastic bag. Now that's what I call a "math moment!" Every day the children take home bags of seeds. Sasha and I often wonder what happens to the seeds when they get home? Parents might want to find a "math moment" at home and count the seeds all over again! Your children will love it! Have fun!

BINGO!!

Today the Tel Aviv class was SO EXCITED that we had Bingo set up! They loved each having their bingo board and watching and listening for each shape to be called. We had two different groups of five or six kids which each played three games a piece! It was a full morning of hearing Bingo! in our class. Bingo is a great game because it is social, yet individual. Kids kept helping each other by saying, "Look! you have a house!" or "I have one too!"  As they game continued it became important how many spaces each child had left on their board. I had never thought of Bingo as a math game but today i was able to see how kids used counting skills, as well as addition and subtraction to understand how many spaces they had covered and how many spaces they had left to win. It was a great morning and I'm sure we will have bingo in our classroom again soon!

Go Fish! The Benefits of Playing Cards

The children in Kohavim have been using playing cards! Children have counted the shapes on individual cards, placed the cards in number order, and matched cards with the same numeral. They have also been playing games such as "Go Fish" or a game some people refer to as "War," where they determine which player has the card with the highest or lowest numeral.  Some of the wonderful math opportunities playing cards provide for young children are to count, compare, and think about sequence. When engaging in card games, the children are also following a set of rules and developing good sportsmanship. When Brett noticed Zack had a large pile of cards he had won during a game he exclaimed that Zack was really good at these games. Zack then explained to Brett, that in the game of "war" you aren't good or bad, it just depends on the cards that you are dealt. You might want to get out the playing cards at home and explore them with your children!

I Had a Little Drediel......

Drediel is such a neat game!! We have all played it so many times but sometimes it takes a group of kids to truly remind you how such a simple game has so many wonderful opportunities for learning! We have been playing drediel all week and we have been using foam letters as gelt which has created a fun literacy twist to what is usually a counting exercise. Drediel teaches taking turns, identifying shapes, patience, good sportsmanship, counting, patterns, fine motor development  and more! The Tel Aviv kids are starting to really master which shape/symbol/color connects to which action and they understand that it's really special when it lands on Green Gimmel  because that means you get all of letters! Drediel is a fun game to play with siblings and friends throughout the week of Hanukkah! We hope you get the opportunity to play with your children and see for yourselves how much they know!

up up and away!

We blasted off on our "spaceships" all morning!!  We were careful not to munch on any leaves or clouds as we flew into the air...

More Eggsploration!

How many ways can the Levana children use eggs? And how many different skills can we practice while preparing our foods?  We've graduated from hand whisks to rotary eggbeaters, and the children found that these were more easily used while standing. We sat to peel our hard-boiled eggs, using fine motor skills to remove all the tiny pieces of shell without gouging the eggs. Counting entered into our cooking, as the children kept track of how many eggs we had used, and how many remained. When they arrived at differing totals, Micah and Eliana learned that touching each egg while counting resulted in a more accurate count!

Menorah Making in the Sunshine Class

Today in the Sunshine class we were very busy preparing for Chanukah by making Menorahs. We first had to count out 10 bolts for each Menorah so we would have enough candles. Aleeza asked why did we need to have 10 bolts if there are only 9 candles. Such a good question, Aleeza. So we took a good look at several of our classroom Menorah's and noticed that the Shamesh candle which is the helper candle is always higher than the rest of the candles so we needed to have an extra bolt to make the "helper candle" higher.

Five Little Driedels

Felt stories are something that the Unicorns enjoy very much, so we had the idea that making them would be fun too!  In circle time we have been reading rhyming poems and wanted to create a felt story to go along with one of them.  A favorite of the class has been 5 Little Driedels.  After picking out the color we wanted the driedels to be, we picked out glue, glitter and confetti to make them shiny and fun.  After the driedels are dry and ready, we will surely play!

                                               

Unicorn Chanukah Snacks!

For snack in the Unicorn class room today, the Blue and the Yellow teams worked very hard to build and create our very own delicious treats, menorahs!  There were many steps that went into our creative creation and the Unicorns all worked hard counting, building and helping one another in building their edible delights.
First we had to cut our bananas, count out nine pretzels, and cut our nine grapes!
The next step was to plan and figure out how to fit the nine pretzel sticks onto the bananas.
Last, the Unicorns worked hard pushing the grapes onto the candles to recreate the light!

Our snack was not only delicious- but tons of fun!

A Day with Rohan!

Today Rohan spent the day in our classroom. We had a wonderful time practicing a song she taught us in Hebrew, Savta Bishla Daisa, which means Grandma Cooked Oatmeal . The song ends in a tickle, which meant everyone wanted a turn! We then made oatmeal for a delicious and filling snack!














We also learned to count to five in Hebrew - echat, shtayim, shalosh, arba, and chamesh!





Did you know Rohan is from Tel Aviv? We're going to get out a map and find it! Thanks Rohan. We had a great day!

Snack Time Hebrew

At snack time children are responsible to get their own snack from a basket placed in the middle of the table. They usually take two, three, or four crackers, pretzels etc. at one time and then two or three more as needed.
We had Puffins cereal and the children asked "how many". We said 10 was a good number of puffin cereal as they are very small pieces.
Eli carefully counted 10, but did so in Hebrew!!!

AH-aht, Shtah-yeem, Shah-losh, Ar-bah, Hah-mesh, Sesh, Sheh-vah, Shmoh-neh, Tay-shah, Es-air.

Counting is fun!

Cooking and math go hand and hand. Measuring, learning about quantity and volume, exploring numbers, and learning the geometric concepts of shape, size, position, and direction are all integral parts of cooking. Teachers and parents can use the many opportunities in cooking to introduce and reinforce mathematical process and concepts.

During Lunch Bunch the children had the opportunity to make Happy Trail Mix! The children were asked to count out 20 cheerios, 10 pretzels , 14 raisin ,and then place them in their own cup. Each child discovered their own counting strategy/style; some children needed support and others were able to count independently. Aaron asked, "How do I count". I replied,"Look at the number on the stick in the bowl and count out 20 cheerios, 14 raisins etc..." Once he received a little direction, he was on his way to make a delicious trail mix today! The next time I heard from Aaron, was when he asked me "Lauri, what comes after 89? ""Mia counted out 6 raisins and then asked, "How many more raisins do I need?" I asked,"What comes after 6?" Josh shouted out, "7...Lauri do you know why I said 7?" I said, "No Josh, why did you say 7?" "Because counting can really help you!" "I replied,"Josh, you are absolutely right!" The children's enthusiasm for exploring concepts such as quantity, number and counting made this cooking activity a lot of fun! I want to personally thank the All Star Lunch Bunchers for a most enjoyable afternoon of "counting fun"!