The joy of juicing

In the Etzim class, we have begun to chart the colors of our snack to see how many different healthy types of fruits and vegetables we eat. We wanted to explore a new way to take in those healthy snacks.

Today in the Etzim class, we had a special gadget join is in circle time, Julia's juicer! Many children at first were a bit nervous at the sight of such a large machine. With hands covering their ears, many friends were worried it would be too loud.

When I turned on the machine and only a soft buzzing came on, my friends relaxed and got into the fun!

First we juiced carrots. Everyone Oowed and aahed at the bright and sweet orange drink!
For the second drink we juiced clementines. Also sweet, this frothy juice was an instant favorite!

Juicing was SUCH a big hit, we are going to do it again tomorrow! Some requests were celery, cucumbers, starwberrys and chocolate chips! Cannot wait to see what Etzim picks to juice tomorrow!

Creating with Fruit!

Building structures with toothpicks and grapes was quite treat! One grape went into their mouth and the next grape they attached to their creation. Eli and Eliza built a radio tower and Hannah built a playground.

The children also had the opportunity to make jewelry by stringing grapes, blueberries and strawberries with a real needle. Molly spent a lot of time creating a colorful tasty necklace!

Placemat Making

Our Scientists have been hard at work for the last few weeks learning about nutrition. Earlier this week we started classifying foods into the food pyramid, and then we worked on deciding what foods are healthy and which are not. Continuing on this theme, our students diligently combed through supermarket flyers, and sorted different items between healthy and unhealthy. Between yesterday and today, we have created our own healthy vs. unhealthy placemats. These placemats will be laminated and will be usable at home!

-Alison Simpson

Learning the Food Pyramid!

To continue with our learning about nutrition, the Scientists noticed something different in the room: a blank pyramid! At circle time, the teachers introduced the pyramid as a food pyramid, showing what are the things we should eat more of and what we should eat less.

As the teachers pulled out a different piece of food from the envelope, we decided as a class where to put things. Some things, such as cheeseburgers and spaghetti and meatballs, were placed on the outside because they could fit in a number of places on the pyramid.

The pyrmaid was left out during free play so that the children could continue classifying foods on their own or with one another. It was a real treat watching their minds work to figure out where we should put each food!

-Alison Simpson

Healthy Choices!

Today the Scientists began a new exciting topic: nutrition! We began our discussion on healthy foods by listing all of our favorite foods. After we listed them all, we decided as a class which foods were healthy and which foods were unhealthy.

We then followed up our discussion by making our own decisions on healthy food. The teachers laid out flyers from supermarkets along with scissors and envelopes, and our Scientists picked out healthy and unhealthy choices. They separated their clippings, and we are going to use them later in the week to make both healthy and unhealthy placemats to use in the future!

-Alison Simpson

Pajama Day!

A few weeks ago Ruby noticed the Unicorn children came to school in their pajamas. She came right over to me and asked, "When can we have pajama day?" I said, "Let's pick a day and put it on the calendar!" Well last Friday was the big day, and boy did we have fun! Not only did we wear our finest pajamas but we all enjoyed a healthy breakfast together. We talked about how a nutritious breakfast is so important in order to get a good start to the day!

Salad People!

Some of the Tel Aviv All Stars came over to make Salad People and others came over for a little nosh and socializing with friends. The children who created people with the veggies and fruit had a lot of fun creating some interesting characters. As Mia giggled, she told me that she was going to make a "bald guy...but this guy has lots hair!" Eric created three guys and proceeded to eat them one by one.

I asked the children," Why do you think we are making Salad People today?" Eric and Mia shouted out, "Because we are talking about healthy choices this week in school!"

On Friday everyone is looking forward to Pajama Day! We will be serving a "Healthy Breakfast", consisting of a variety of cereal, fresh fruit and milk. WE can't wait!

Healthy Choices!

Today we introduced our Unit on Nutrition to the Tel Aviv children. We discussed words like "healthy food choices" and "not healthy food choices", all the children came up with some good examples of both. Healthy choices apples, salad, turkey,cheese etc... Not healthy choices candy,cookies,soda etc... The children had fun looking through fliers, cutting then sorting foods onto the appropriate tray "healthy foods" or "not healthy foods".

SOMETHING GOOD

This past week, the Haifa All Stars had a favorite story that they requested to be read to them multiple times. They even asked for it to be read at Lunch Bunch two times in a row! The Story is called SOMETHING GOOD which is written by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko. The story begins with a father going to the store with his children and trying to show them that he is only going to buy healthy food to eat. But the children don't consider healthy food good food. The children continually bring sugary food to the shopping cart and create quite a scene in the store. Then something unusual happens to the daughter in the story, Tyra. If you have time ask your child how the rest of the story goes and why he/she liked it so much.

It was wonderful to see the children so enthralled with the story. We will keep it on our bookshelf for awhile so they can continue to enjoy it together.

Listen to Something Good dramatically read by Robert Munsch himself.