Musical Mondays continues ...

First we made some observations. What did we notice about about the strings on these two instruments?

Mia decided she needed to touch the strings to make her decisions, Olivia looked and decided to sketch her design before starting, Hayden noticed the strings were straight, Josh and Reed looked at the instruments ( guitar and Harp) and decided the wood piece they were given was definitely not long enough. 

Hayden was not quite certain how to proceed. She elected to observe what a peer was doing before proceeding. 

Aah the joy of accomplishments!!! Now the real test did we make music?? You might want to ask your children. 

More Art with Nature!

The children in Kohavim have continued to create with materials found in nature. At the science table, the children have been using black felt and natural materials to create temporary compositions. The children select from colorful leaves, sticks, stones, and acorns and then decide how they would like to arrange and place the materials on the felt. Elias used sticks and leaves to create a tree, while Josie told an elaborate story as she created a ballet studio . Using open-ended materials found in nature provides endless opportunities for imagination, creativity, and learning. 

Think, Think, Think, Think, Think....

 Reed wanted to make his own Sukkah and looked at some pictures for inspiration. Teachers noticed he seemed unhappy with the process. He had some clay, but it didn't look like a sukkah. We asked him if there was anything we could do to help and if there was anything wrong? He responded, "No, I am just waiting for something to come into my brain." Yes, it does take time to plan and think. As one can see the thought came to him and a beautiful sukkah was created!!

Early Morning Artists

 Kayla, Eli, Eli, Adam, and Olivia enjoying some early morning time together. They used the hole punchers to cut out shapes of birds, flowers, and leaves, then glued them on a piece of paper creating.

Ewwwww.....Slime?!

Today in the Adom classroom, Jesse and Lauren had a recipe for an interesting thing called....

 Glitter Slime! 

All of the children followed the four steps for cooking glitter slime, and after we mixed it all together, we got to play with our creation.

 Molly put the slime into a pot!

 Ben M also enjoyed using the pot and a straw with the slime.

 Samantha feels the slime for the first time and is surprised by its wet, smooth, and somewhat sticky feeling!

 Micah isn't sure how he feels about the way the slime squishes around in between his fingers.

Four children played at a time, and they got to squish and squeeze the slime, mold and shape it, and create fun figures.  The glitter slime was very pretty to look at, but quite wet and goopy when we played with it with our hands.  Everyone loved the glitter slime!

 Samantha made a ball out of the glitter slime!

 Zach counts to 20 while playing with the glitter slime.

 Samantha, Charlotte, and Ben M all enjoy cooking with the glitter slime! They knead, chop, and fold the glitter slime.

 Noah likes the pretty blue color of the glitter slime!

 The glitter slime was fun for everyone! (:

Moses at Mt Sinai

 

Originally the holiday of Shavuot celebrated the end of the grain harvest. The nature of the celebration of the holiday has changed over time. The holiday became associated with the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai. The Levana children created their own representations of Mt. Sinai with air-drying clay, rocks and the Moses figure.

Team work

It was peace out (quiet time) in lunch bunch. Several activities are set up for this time. On this particular day children wanted to construct with Magna tiles. Brett and Max Greenstein made a plan: they wanted to make something big and use ALL the tiles. They negotiated placement of tiles and shared a vision. Others were working alongside but they did not have as many tiles to work with. One might think ... Trouble coming! Jacob, Jared, and Drew asked if they could add on to their existing structure. Brett and Max graciously said sure, then asked "can you post this on the blog, so my dad can see we did teamwork?" It is wonderful to sit alongside children learning life skills of negotiation and teaching and inspiring one another!

Home Sweet Home!

Last Friday the Tel Aviv class flew back from Israel. There were a few differences between our voyage back and our trip to Israel a few weeks ago. While we were in Israel Noah came up with the idea that our airplane should be #12 because there are 12 kids in our class. Together we decided this was a great idea then we realized that there were only 10 kids present the day of the flight. We talked about should it be numbered ten or twelve. Noah decided a twelve so that all the Tel Aviv kids were included even if they weren't there that day.  Together we made a sign with the number twelve and the TLV --> BOS airport codes. We also made tickets with lots of different airport codes on them and each kid had to identify the BOS area code before they could board the plane to Boston. It was a neat letter recognition activity and the class was very eager to learn what the other airport codes stood for.  Our plane had a smooth flight and landing and we were very happy to see that spring time had arrived in Boston while we were in Israel. Now it's time to play outside!

Another way to represent Daffodils

 After representing the daffodils with watercolor paints, we put out strips of bleed tissue paper. The children tore pieces of tissue paper to form the shapes of the flowers. Next, they wet the tissue paper and watched as the color bled onto their white background. They then peeled up the tissue paper to reveal their creation. It is so exciting to to see the many ways children can represent their observations.

finding treasure

Last week, we found a hidden treasure in the dramatic play area of our kitchen.  A huge bag of dress up clothes!!  There were animal and insect costumes, princess gowns, headpieces and frilly skirts.

As any three or four year old can tell you, dressing up and pretending to be someone new is fun, exciting and dramatic.  We have enjoyed being kings, queens and princess, ladybugs who "save the day" and "very fancy" mommies and daddies who make dinner.

Thank you Keshet class for sharing your dress up clothes.  We have enjoyed them so much!!

Kids Taking Photos!

Seder Preparation

Today in the Shamayim classroom we were busy learning and preparing for the holiday of Passover.  The Shamayim children created beautiful Seder plates to be used for their very own Seders.   

photography 101

Ilan, Josh, Victoria, Bennett and Rose did some camera practice this morning!  Take a look at some of their shots...not bad, huh?!

Guess Who!?

Noah, Adam and Zach spent some time putting together a fabulous puppet show of the story of Purim! We have been reading and acting this story throughout the week and now they are creating the themes, characters, and plot all on their own. Sometimes when they use the puppets they strive to re-tell the story as they have heard it. Other times they tried to create their own story using the characters they have become familiar with. Often times they come up with their own ending. Or they create modern day setting for the ancient characters. It is neat to see how the puppets and the story activate their imaginations! 
How would you change and  retell the Purim story?  

Creating Snowflakes!!

This week we have been excited by SO MUCH SNOW. So we decided to bring snow indoors by creating snowflakes! Creating snowflakes is very much a magical process for pre-school aged kids. It involves a lot of folding and cutting and after a few shapes cut out, you unfold the paper and magically a snowflake appears! What I love about the project, is that there is no, "right-way" to make a snow flake and everyone is unique, just like the snow! Snowflakes also give the opportunity to practice cutting skills and gain fine motor muscles as they practice this skill. It is nice that there is no "pre-determined" line or path in which to cut on, it's just an opportunity to practice cutting and see what each fold and cut creates!
 Many beautiful snow flakes were created.
 Come on in and take a peak tomorrow and see them hung up on the wall of the Tel Aviv room!

3, 2, 1 BLASTOFF!!!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BLASTOFF!!!
The floor began to rumble as our feet stamped against the floor and we quickly drum-rolled on our legs to simulate the rocket being blasted off into space. We had built a rocket ship out of our parachute and our regular Tel Aviv chairs and tables. It all started earlier in lunch bunch when Zach and Micah Gladstone were looking at a book of outer space. I asked them if they wanted to visit the places in the book and they nodded at me eagerly, so we decided to do just that, and in order to visit space you need to build a rocket ship! So we built a rocket ship, packed our bags filled with lego-remotes, plastic food, and a few books to keep us entertained. Before we took off we ran out in the hallway to grab our winter hats-it was very important to make sure that we were prepared with the latest space headgear. We climbed in the rocket and blasted off! After the excitement of take-off had worn off, we traveled outside of our cozy ship and saw a plant that was filled with hungry aliens! Oh no! Well, if they were hungry then we should feed them! We all headed over to the sensory table and made cupcakes for the aliens out of dirt. Then we realized we hadn't celebrated Shabbat in space!! We got out our candle sticks and challah cover and lit a candle to make sure that the day of rest was remembered no matter where in the universe we were. As the candle burned, Zach's mom came in to pick  him up and suddenly the group had to return back to the earth. As soon as we had landed, Micah Gladstone turned to me and asked,
"What's the lunch bunch activity?"
Little did he realize that an hour and a half had passed while he had been to the moon and back.

This wonderful, imaginative afternoon reminded me of the power of imagination. So often we as teachers are focused on implementing curriculum and it was wonderful to spend an afternoon with five wide-eyed curious, excited kids and just PLAY, really, truly, play. So often the kids come up with the best, most exciting ideas and I enjoy following their lead and learning with them so much.
It was a wonderful afternoon of adventure, I think the kids had a pretty good time too : )

Shamayim Construction Co.

We turned our classroom into a construction site today.  There were wooden blocks and cars, larger cardboard boxes and hammer and "nails" to bang.

Josh had a fabulous time moving from one renovation site to the next.  He and Max worked together at two different projects and made very cool race tracks with the wooden blocks and the larger cardboard boxes.

Purple Playdough

 

After coming across some rather interesting playdough toys that do some amazing squeezing, grinding, scooping and oozing out  of the dough, we made a batch of purple playdough.      

Nature Art

Architects in the making....

We have been spending some time exploring the many different menorahs that the children have brought in for our museum. We have noticed differences and similarities. You might want to ask your children about what they have discovered. From these explorations children have started to design their own menorahs. We have many different materials to select from. Oh my sooo many decisions. We are making blueprints of our designs to refer back to as we continue our exploration with size, shape, and height.