Where is God?

On Friday, the kindergartners came in to find a letter from some of the 12th graders here at Temple Beth Shalom who share a classroom with us and the Kohavim children. In their message, the 12th graders explained that they have been thinking about where God is and asked if we had any ideas. The kindergartners used black sharpies and watercolor paints to share their ideas. Below are the children's thoughts that they shared. 

Jacob: In the clouds. 

Dylan: In the ocean. 

Brett Stone: He appears. Like he was always here. 

Evan: In the air. And he comes on the ground on Jewish holidays. I made hearts to love God for all the stuff he gives us. 

James: I think he's in the sky. 

Brett Ellerin: In the sky. 

Julian: He like lives in the like in a rainbow. 

Adam: In the clouds. 

Zack: I think he looks like nothing. Like white. 

Their paintings and quotes will be hanging in the classroom for the 12th graders to see. We can't wait to here where they think God is and to continue sharing our ideas with them and Kohavim. 

Where is God?

When we came into the Kohavim classroom this morning we found a letter from some of the 12th graders here at Temple Beth Shalom who share our classroom. In their message, the 12th graders explained that they have been think about where God is and asked if we had any ideas. The kohavim children were so excited to share their ideas with the 12th graders through writing and drawing.

Some of the children's thoughts and ideas are listed below:

Ben said, "I think in heaven. This is the clouds.
And that's an airplane passing. That's God (red)." 

Micah R: God is everywhere. I drew (arrows) because God is everywhere.
Joise: God is everywhere. You can't see God. He can see us, but we can't see him. He's invisible.
Noah: God is everywhere. God makes rainstorms.
Ben: He could be in the sky or in the clouds.
Molly: On the beach.
Emme: In the clouds. I'm doing a rainbow. He's in the water and flowers too.
Charlotte: I'm drawing the earth around him. And (God is) in the swimming pool.
Zach: In the clouds.
Adam: In the sky. Everywhere. I need blue because the sky is blue.

We will pass along our ideas to Rabbi Todd to deliver to the 12th graders. We hope they will write back and share some of their ideas with us too!

What is Science?

Today we began sharing our ideas about what we think science is. The kindergarteners had so many different ideas.

The children said science is...
- making volcanoes
- look at stuff
- observing
- looking for dinosaur bones
- looking at leaves
- making statues
- making everything
- when you discover
- weather
- looking for treasure at the beach

We then read the story, "What is Science?" by Rebecca Kai Dotlich. It talks about astronomy, entomology, meterology, engineering, botany, and many other kinds of science. We also noticed that we already do some of those sciences, such as examining plants or leaves and observing insects. We are beginning to discover that we have a class full of scientists already! We will continue our discussion of science and scientists and start to think about what we want to study more deeply as scientists! 

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 should we change the dramatic play area to?

We decided in Kohavim it was time to change our dramatic play area. We asked for the children's ideas and they had many! They suggested a construction site, library, post office, and many different types of stores. We agreed that this time we would change the dramatic play area to a type of store and next time we would try one of the other ideas. This week, the children voted for which type of store they thought we should transform the dramatic play area to. The choices were: Shoe store, Dunkin Donuts, Toy store, or a Food Store. All of the children casted their votes by writing their name on a yellow post-it note and placing it next to the choice they liked the most. Before story, we tallied the votes together. After counting the number of votes for each store we compared to find out which had the highest number of votes. We determined that Dukin Donuts, which had 9 votes, had the highest number of votes. It is official, we will be changing our dramatic play area to a pretend Dunkin Donuts!

We then made a list of what we thought we might need to change the dramatic play area to a Dunkin Donuts. Below is our list of ideas:
- Donuts
- Hot Chocolate
- Coffee
- Munchkins
- Milk
- Snacks
- Bags
- Iced Tea
- Egg and Cheese
- Cash registers
- Money
- Cups
- Aprons
- Chairs and table
- Chef hats
- drinks
- Straws


Stay tuned as our transformation of the dramatic play area to a pretend Dunkin Donuts continues!

Getting ready for our Passover Play!

The Lunch Bunch children started to gather props and costumes for our Passover Play.   Noah is Moses, Lily is Miriam and Micah is the Pharaoh!  Stay tuned as we will have our first dress rehearsal tomorrow!

Gak Art!

The children mixed glue, water, food coloring and borax together to make orange gak.   They rolled it, cut the gak and made jewelry with it.

  In Lunch Bunch Adam and Elias asked if they could draw or color the orange gak with markers?  The children took out a few old markers and started to draw and color the gak.  Check it out...That's what we call  "Gak Art!" 

URJ Youth Engagement Conference 2013!

From TBS to NFTY Mitzvah Corps Costa Rica, Youth Engagement Conference gave us the time to connect and reconnect with friends and teens from all around the country!!

This past week I had the fantastic opportunity to participate in the Union for Reform Judaism’s Youth Engagement conference in Los Angeles. This conference ran parallel to NFTY convention, which is a convention for over 800 reform Jewish high schoolers throughout the country. My conference was a conference for the professionals that regularly work with engaging high schoolers. As many of you know, I love working with the high schoolers at TBS and was the assistant BESTY advisor last year; however, working with high schoolers is not currently a part of my job. So why was I at this conference?  The answer lies in a single question that is being asked by educators everywhere, “How do we keep children engaged in Temple youth programming?”  The answer to this is often similar no matter your age most studies have shown that it is the relationships, both peer relationships and relationships with positive adult role models that encourage students to participate in temple events no matter how old they are. 

One thing we discussed at the conference was the difference between simple participating in an activity and truly being engaged in an activity. I want my students to always be engaged, to feel as though they have ownership over the activity and to feel as though what they are doing is meaningful to them.

During the conference I participated in workshops that I knew would be applicable to the work I did at TBS.  I attended multiple art workshops where we discussed the benefits of visiting artists and workshops within Temple communities.  We also talked about how to use found objects and cardboard boxes (my favorite!) into Jewish lessons.  Our team created a beautiful cardboard sukkah and then we work-shopped our experience and altered the program and ran it for teens. Who knows, maybe my pre- schoolers will be making cardboard sukkot in the fall! It was a great team building exercise!

I also went to a GREAT improv workshop with song leader and educator Noam Katz. We talked about how to teach prayer and Torah stories through drama. It was a great continuation to the story telling workshops the Mayim and children center teams have been participating in.

In addition I took a workshop with Cathy Rolland who is the head of the Early Childhood division of the URJ. We talked about engaging young families and how the best way to have engaged teenagers is to have them engaged as pre-schoolers. I felt like this had been a missing voice throughout the conference and I am glad that the early childhood perspective was included! I was surprised at how many individuals throughout the country work with both teens and pre-schoolers! I was also able to hear a lot of ways that individuals had created programming that bridge the age gaps between youth in their congregations. it was a great workshop with ideas from temples throughout the country!

The Youth Engagement Conference was a great opportunity to learn, to collaborate, to listen and to share. I was proud to be coming from a community that is so creative in our ways of engaging and I am eager to continue this in anyway I can. If you have any ideas or suggestions of ways to continue to engage your second and third graders please send me an email!  I am looking forward to the rest of our year together!!

We Love A Good Idea

One day the Haifa Lunch Bunch were "taking a tour" when we were invited into the Levana classroom for a dance party.  Turns out Tina ends lunch bunch every day with a fun dance party.  We loved this idea so much that we, too, now end our day with dance party fun!   

Body Art!

The children had the opportunity to use face paint crayons to create designs, pictures, lines and patterns from head to toe! They had a ball drawing on themselves, classmates, friends and the counselors (EMILY was covered with beautiful Body Art).

The children drew on their on their face, arms, legs and belly! It seemed as though the children had an idea in their head as to what they wanted to create, and they went to work! They were so proud of their finished art!

Decorating the signs for the TBSCC Carnival!

Inspired By A Good Book

Nathan loves to sit and spend some time with a good book.  Sometimes this is a book from our library, but Nathan also loves to share books from home.  When Nathan brought his Elmer book in to share, it inspired us to create Elmer and Teddy collages to use as props while reading the story.  Thanks for sharing, Nathan!

 

Guess what's new in the Tel Aviv classroom?

Guess what's new in the Tel Aviv classroom? That's right a brand new sensory table!!! Today the children had fun exploring with colored water, basters, tubes and funnels. The new addition was a big hit with the whole Tel Aviv family!

Our Own Space Mobiles!!

Yesterday the Haifas started one last space project. We have been working very hard on learning the names and order of the planets in our solar system, and so yesterday, we started to create our own mobiles! Each student got their own bag of eight different sized styrofoam balls, and were told they could decorate them however they wanted. We first started with oil pastels, and then realized that they were missing something important...GLITTER!!

Here Zack and Sadie are getting messy with glitter and oil pastels!

Tomorrow we are going to create the rings of Saturn on one ball. We were inspired by Sadie's project that she shared with the class, in which she made Saturn at home! She shared with us how she made the planet, and we are going to try to replicate it!

Keep an eye out for a glittery solar system heading your way soon!!

-Alison