Un-Tying Tie-Dye

Today the Tel Aviv class untied and cut the rubber bands on their tie-dye to unveil their beautiful tie-dye creations! Taking the rubber bands off the shirts could be done either by cutting or by untying the rubber bands. Both of these take lots of concentration and fine motor skills.

The Tel Aviv class was SO excited to see their finished product, but for many the number of rubber bands was frustrating. The Tel Aviv kids knew that teachers weren’t going to help them so much with this task, but they were determined to complete it. Hannah worked for a very long time untying every single rubber band. Lily figured out how to cut them fairly quickly and then she helped Eliza and Eliza then helped Ezra! It was great to see how they each were able to help each other to accomplish what was a fairly challenging task. Yet when the task was completed a beautiful orange shirt was reveled and we are so excited to wear them at Shalom Day next week!

The Rubber Band Challenge

After the Tel Aviv class finished taking all their rubber bands off their tie-dye we got a geo-board out to further explore playing with rubber bands. Hannah, Lily and Eliza quickly got to work filing the geo-board with rubber bands and after a minute or two they whole thing was filled and the game was done.

I then gave them a challenge..to create a Jewish star on the geo-board. The girls LOVED the challenge and felt as though it was pretty hard to do. They experimented with the geo-board for awhile but it wasn’t turning out right. Then Eliza went to the art table and started drawing Jewish stars. Step by step we looked at the points and how they compared to each other and the geo-board. We slowly pieced together one triangle and then we flipped the board upside down and they quickly figured out how to do the second! It was so neat to see the many steps in their problem solving skills. It was a fun challenge that used real critical thinking skills.

 Nice determination ladies! Job well done!

Rubber Band Mania!

Today Eliza saw a geo-board as Lauri was getting snack set up and excitedly asked Lauri if we could play with it today. We borrowed some rubber bands from the Haifa class and let the girls go to work! They were so excited to have the geo-borad back again and they created lines and shapes of all different colors and sizes. Lauri and I had been talking about getting new rubber bands ever since curriculum night but it was great that we could use our geo-board right away! The rubber bands are helpful in exercising hand and finger muscles that will help straighten children's ability to hold a pencil and write. We loved that this activity was Eliza's idea and we hope to have them out more often in the next few months!!