Ideas about God

As we were celebrating Shabbat on Friday, an interesting topic of conversation arose among the Kindergarteners: God. Below are the children's ideas, questions, and thoughts they shared.

Zack: I think God is a boy.
Brett Stone: Me too.
Zack: If God made everything then who made God?
Jesse: How do you think we could find out about that?
Zack: I don't think we can find the answer because you can't see God and God's the only one who knows.
Brett Stone: You could look on your phone.
Adam: Maybe he (God) only appeared.
Julian: Like magically.
Evan: You could look in the Torah.
Zack: Or a Rabbi would know.
Evan: God is a Rabbi because he is Jewish.
Brett Stone: Are all Rabbis Jewish?
Evan: Yes!
Brett Stone: Do they have to be?

Young children are actively working to make sense of the world around them, including their beliefs and ideas about God. We can't wait to see how the kindergarteners questions, ideas, and beliefs about God will develop this year!

What will happen to the pumpkin?

After exploring the pumpkin in Kindergarten Enrichment on Monday, we decided to place it in a sealed plastic container to find out what might happen to it. On Friday, the kindergarteners made their first observations of the pumpkin. The children drew what they noticed and made predictions about what might happen:

What do you think will happen to our pumpkin? 
Julian: I think it will stay alive but it will get rotten. Just like turn brown.
Evan: Get rotten and be dead.
Zack: If you keep it outside, rabbits or squirrels will eat it. Once I kept it outside and squirrel ate it.
Brett: It will turn brown and get expired. It's not good anymore, like I wanted to eat pudding, but it was expired and I couldn't eat it anymore.

While looking at the container the children noticed something:
Evan: It doesn't have holes to breathe.
Zack: It's not a person.
Evan: Plants breathe.
Brett: Apples in the fridge breathe.
Evan: And leaves breathe.

We will have to continue observing to see if any of our predictions will happen and think more about whether the pumpkin breathes or not. We will be observing the pumpkin over the next few weeks to find out what will happen, stay tuned!

Why do people get married???

The Kohavim children have been interested in the concept of marriage for quite some time since they found out that their beloved teacher Jesse is getting married. In addition we are planning a celebration for Jesse and her fiance Larry on May 28th. The children will have an opportunity to meet the mysterious "Larry" we often hear about but have not met. Brett wanted to know WHY do people get married? Zack quickly responded: "When people get married they have babies then there is another family in town." Dylan said:"To get new babies." Max Greenstein responded: "When you really love someone you have to be with them and spend your time with them." Sooo why did we marry our spouses???

Watch It Grow!

During Tu B'Shevat we tried new and interesting fruits and veggies every day. One day we had a cantaloupe so filled with seeds we decided to plant them. Yesterday we entered our classroom to find that the cantaloupe seeds we had planted had sprouted! Today we checked on their progress, formed some hypotheses on what might happen next, and talked about what other plants we would like to grow!

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!!

Last One to the Top is a Rotten Egg

Our conversation about the harvest lead us to discussing what you can do with corn after it has been picked which lead us to making cornbread today!   One of the ingredients in cornbread is an egg.  We found some eggs in our fridge with different expiration dates which provided us with the perfect opportunity for an experiment.  We formed a HYPOTHESIS (the older eggs will do something different in the bowl than the fresher eggs), we did an EXPERIMENT (put the eggs in a bowl with water), we GATHERED AND ANALYZED DATA (the older eggs with an expired date floated to the top and the newer eggs sunk to the bottom of the bowl), and came to a CONCLUSION (Fresher eggs sink to the bottom of the bowl - use these!)  We'll learn why this happened tomorrow!  On a sidenote, the cornbread was a hit!

Our Sukkah in the Making!!!

Our Faces are Dirty but Our Babies are Clean

We continue to explore what happens when we add water to our ditch. Today we added so much water it Jacob said he was "going to clean off in the river." Our canal has gotten wider and longer with so many engineers hard at work!

Josh and Sam took extra care to make sure the babies had clean eyeballs.

Kids Taking Pictures!

Today Eli asked if he could take the camera outside to take some pictures. He took some beautiful shots...Especially the ones of himself!

Understanding volume and quantity

"I have 115 Legos," Noah told us. "I have 100 marshmallows," said Daniel. But which was more? What a confusing question! Daniel's bag of marshmallows was big compared to Noah's little box of Legos. Didn't that mean Daniel had more? With both piles laid on the floor, the children came over to investigate. Noah was sure he had more. Others weren't quite ready to believe him. What an interesting question to investigate and a great one to continue exploring at home. Mathematical thinking at its finest.

Learning Through Collaborative Inquiry

To ask, to argue, to interpret, and to transmit are not only deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, but also essential elements of our growth and maturity. As Matthew, Jeffrey, and Daniel explored a book about space they took turns being the student and the teacher, asking some questions and answering others. Constantly alternating roles, questioning and listening, and using the conversation to give birth to new questions and challenges in this small group, each of them furthered their own learning by collaborating together. It is this style of learning that is critical to young children, helping them develop inquiry and collaboration tools they will use on their lifelong learning journey.

Presentations

Making a presentation in front of the whole class is something that makes even some adults nervous. The Scientist children took turns presenting their piles of 100 objects to their classmates. Noah brought in a container of 115 tiny Lego pieces. After the brief presentation by Noah, his classmates were ready to ask him questions.

"Why did you bring 115, not 100?"

"Why are they so small?"

"Where did you get them?"

This practice in presenting by one child and in coming up with thoughtful questions by the other children, was repeated for each child who brought in an example of 100 objects. What a great activity to get those young minds thinking!

What Is This??

After having a Shabbat meal---even though it was Monday---some of the Tel Aviv All Stars discovered one of the pretend "fruits" which they had trouble identifying. They thought we should show it to children in the other classes and see what others thought it was. Time was short as we were about to celebrate Havdallah. Great problem solvers that we are, we took the object to Havdallah. On the way we ran in to Ellen and Jeffrey B. Ellen thought it was a cantaloupe, and Jeffrey said it looked like a pomegranate. Responses from children in the other classes included: pineapple, watermelon, a green pumpkin, grapefruit, cheese, and playdough! The majority of students polled thought the object was a cantaloupe. The shape, coloring, and design on the skin were the defining features. Thank you all for participating. A special thanks to Aaron S. for asking the question, writing down the responses, and carrying the materials around with us throughout the Center.

Is it a bird, a plane...

Just as our morning was ending, someone spotted a man high up in the tree outside our window. We interrupted our second circle and all gathered by the window to see what was "up". The children were particularly excited because we allowed them to climb on the table--with careful supervision of course--to get a better view. What was he doing there? Guesses included: "sawing down branches", "saving a cat", "fixing something." We still don't know the answer but what fun it was to watch and guess.

Flat Stanley and the balcony in Israel

"What is a balcony?"

This question elicited several responses; Alison, the teacher with the red hair, wrote down some of the Scientists' ideas.

A Balcony is -

Like a porch and is made of concrete and wood.

Part of the house.

Outside.

Up high in the air; you have to be careful not to fall.

A Balcony has no roof (sometimes).

You can sit and have drinks on it.

(Maybe Flat Stanley and Ellen did that after the rain.)

Juice in a box?

Aden noticed our new juice packaging right away and laughed at the thought of juice in a box. He wondered whether there really was grape juice in the box. Aaron and Aden studied the label and to find out. A discussion followed on the differences between the plastic bottle and the box. We talked about the fact that one package of juice was made in Texas and the other in California, yet they both had the same ingredient. Yet another unexpected learning moment right in the middle of snack time.

creating a mural

The Scientist Class worked hard on creating a class mural using both their drawing skill and gluing the wonderful items that they brought in from nature. The cooperation was just wonderful to watch. "Where should this acorn go?" "My twig is falling from outer space" This project is an exercise for the children to to have the opportunity to work as a team and feel proud of the result. We will continue to explore materials from nature and the many ways we can create art from these wonders.

What's in there?

"What's in there?" asked Aden as a pulled a long clear tube out of the water table. "I don't know. Try pouring some water in there and find out." I replied. So Aden used a container to carefully pour water into the funnel. "It's water!" he observed as the water flowed through the tube and back into the water table. Isaiah had been nearby watching and approached the table, picking up the other end of the tube. What would happen if water was poured into both ends? Ask the boys to find out what the discovered.