A Rainbow of Leaves

On Monday, Kohavim began to notice the leaves on our playground have begun to change colors. After collecting a few different colors, we decided to make a rainbow with our leaves. Molly organized the leaves from by color from brown, to red, to yellow, to light green, and then dark green. What a beautiful rainbow! You might want to collect some leaves from your backyard and try making a rainbow of leaves at home.

Sorting "Treasures"

The Tel Aviv class LOVES my glass "gems."  Throughout the year I have often brought in pieces of glass and they have sorted them by size, color  and texture. Each child has found his or her favorite and they play with their pieces as if they were treasures. This past weekend I had the opportunity to work on my art quite a bit and on Tuesday I had a whole new bag of glass gems to show the class. They immediately poured them on a table and started to sort. This time they found things such as rainbows and smily faces which allowed them to sort by "type" rather than color. Sometimes Micah and Zach assign values to the pieces and do trades creating their own sort of glass currency which I find extremely fascinating but is not based on anything I know about glass art. Although these objects aren't toys they are new interesting pieces that inspire curiosity and play. Lily and Josie were having the smily faces talk to each other as if they were dolls. So neat! It's great to see how much they can learn simply from a bag of shiny "treasures."

Glass Gems

During Lunch Bunch, the Kohavim and Haifa children have been exploring glass gems. They used muffin tins to sort the gems. Some children sorted by color, shape, and even texture! Some of the children used the gems and muffin tins to pretend they were selling cupcakes! Using the glass gems and muffin tins provided wonderful math opportunities such as noticing characteristics of objects and sorting. The children were inspired to engage in dramatic play and the beautiful glass gems provide an interesting sensory opportunity as they feel smooth, different shaped, and a bit cold to touch.

Sorting by Color

Today in Levana the children became more familiar with sorting. They used a styrofoam container with several compartments labeled by color. The children had fun playing amongst each other and practicing the names of the colors. We will have this same activity available tomorrow for friends who weren't in class today. Enjoy the pictures below!

Required Fall Crafting

Everybody should have the experience of ironing leaves between wax paper at least once in their life.  Today the Etzim children sorted through the leaves we collected on the playground yesterday.  Eliana noticed the leaves had curled up because we did not press them overnight.   We sorted, arranged, then pressed them with the iron.  Good, old fashioned leaf pressing fun! 

Sorting It Out

Something was amiss here, and Ben knew it. Seems that the metal cars were all mixed in with the wooden trains this morning. This would certainly slow the process of finding an engine, caboose and freight cars to get things rolling. We notice in our young children the ability to distinguish between play items based on color, size, material and purpose. They know that the kitchen things are (usually) for use in the kitchen, and that the Legos and the shells go in two different baskets. Sorting activities progress from the simple to the sophisticated. With a teacher, Ben had a fun game of "What Belongs," as he separated the wooden trains from the metal cars, and soon had things back on track!

Sorting at School and Home

Nathan and Micah were were collaborating on sorting fruits and then extended their activity to sort clothespins as well (getting some nice fine motor work accomplished!) Sorting is all about observing, comparing and contrasting objects, which helps children understand that objects can be grouped in different ways or regrouped.  Children will apply these skills to future math learning when learning about numbers.

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Try having children sort at home -   silverware, putting groceries away (frozen vs. fresh food), laundry sorting by colors or matching socks, or sorting toys by color are all fun.

One color per cup

This morning the sunshine children did some bead sorting...but it was difficult to figure out what the directions were. We decided on a color that we liked best and then each child filled their cup with that color. However, as the activity got started, each time a child put a bead in the cup, they changed their color.

It was fascinating to see that the directions that seemed quite obvious to me, really weren't clear and the children were frustrated with the task. I modeled again and again as Brett, Lizzie, Aleeza, Zachary, Ben and Noah Sussman watched me intently. They really wanted to get it right!

After 3 or 4 examples, I began to hear "ok, I'm doing blue." "I like orange." "Maybe I'll try red." As I peeked in their cups, each cup contained only one color. However, that wasn't the best part...when I looked up at their faces, I saw HUGE smiles. They weren't smiling because they were putting all blue beads in their cup. They were smiling because they achieved their goal - even though it was challenging at first. They were proud of themselves and it showed!!

Help us raise the money to plant trees in Israel

In Israel planting trees is a major part of the holiday of Tu B'Shevat. School children turn out in droves to plant trees all over Israel. Here in the Boston area, we can send money through the Jewish National Fund for someone to plant a tree in our place. That's what we are hoping to do in the Levana class. Mia, Olivia and Elias are sorting out the coins that we will use to buy our tree.

But, we need your help. When we counted what we had, we were short a few dollars. Please help us raise the balance needed by contributing your loose change.