Bingo

  
Jacob is the caller for the Picture Bingo game and the children helped each other  to match the cards.  This type of activity is a wonderful vehicle for children to learn how to take turns and it's exciting to watch as they learn how to play the game without adult support!

"Basketball"??

Today the Keshet class played a new game--their own version of basketball.  They took turns throwing small balls into a big basket.  Some stood behind a "line" of tape that was put on the floor and tried to throw the balls into the basket.  Some walked up closer to the basket and placed the balls in.  The children enjoyed trying something new, and did a great job waiting for their friends and taking turns.  When they finished throwing the balls into the big basket, they even helped each other bring the balls back to the line of tape for the next friend to have a turn throwing.

Hammering Away on a Friday afternoon

     

       
 

On Friday, several children continued to work on their  projects. The  Kohavim and Hafia  lunch bunch welcomed some friends from the  Tel Aviv class to join in the fun. The children concentrated on the task and at the end of the session Molly asked, " Can we keep doing this?" The children have enjoyed the process and it provides an opportunity to develop  eye-hand coordination skills.  Next week, we'll be back  to the woodworking shop on Friday afternoon.

My Turn, Your Turn...

This week we have been exploring and learning about what the word  "friend" means.  Early on in the week  we asked the children, "What nice things do friends do?"
Elias- sharing, Adam- stopping to listen, Molly- negotiating, Micah R- playing together, Charlotte-play dates, Noah-they hug, Lily-share, Samantha- share, Micah G- hold hands, Josh-they
kiss, Josie- they play together and Zach-take turns.

Today in lunch bunch Micah R mentioned that he really likes to play "slap jack" at home.  I suggested we all play together.  The whole group was excited and interested to learn how to play.   Micah and I explained how to play.  We all had a ball!  Everyone became familiar with each card in the deck...#10, #5, the Jacks, Queens etc.   Every time someone placed down a card they told the group what it was, except for the "Jacks"!  Quickly the children caught on , if you see a "Jack" put your hand on it really, really, fast!   If your hand is there first, you get to keep all the cards.  "Slap Jack is a great way to teach children how to take turns and it's a lot of fun!

Elias turned 4 years old today!

Elias turned 4 years old today! Karen came into the classroom to celebrate with all of us. First we sang "Happy Birthday" in both Hebrew and English and then Karen read a few books...Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride and the special book the Tel Aviv children made for Elias in honor of his birthday.

It is tradition in the Tel Aviv classroom to make a book with personal messages for the birthday girl or boy to take home. The children love the idea of being able to take the book home and keep it forever!

After we read the books Karen baked an apple cake with the entire class! Everyone participated! Karen had the children all take turns cutting, measuring and mixing all the ingredients together! Then we all walked down to the Community Room kitchen and watched Karen place the cake in the oven with some help from Elias of course. We are all looking forward to eating a piece of cake tomorrow!

Karen thanks so much for coming in to celebrate Elias's birthday with us! Happy Birthday Elias!

Water Wall Report!

Today the children continued to build the Water Wall. We drilled holes into plastic containers with a drill. Then we worked together to attach them to the fence with pipe cleaners!

Next week the plan is to get a few more clear plastic tubes to attach to the Water Wall.

The best part seems to be filling the tubes with colored water and watching the water flow through the tubes into the plastic containers, out the holes and into the bucket!

Water Wall Report!

The children were very busy today drilling holes in plastic containers and mixing the water colors as they experimented with color! Throughout the day a small group of children shared the basters to fill the clear tube, as they observed the water flow into the bucket below.

Mr Sun where are you?

We carried on with our summer fun even without Mr Sun!

We made a delicious tuna noodle casserole for Rosie's Place, made fresh play dough, created framed nature art (this was a big hit last week), play a few games of UNO, at the end of the day we all enjoyed popcorn/pops and stories! What a day!

Respect all living things!

In honor of Tikkun Olam Day we have had many discussions about how we can take care of our world? The children came up with some great ideas! No matter how big or how small we need to respect all living creatures and things... Put the garbage in the trash where it belongs, plant lots of trees, fruits , vegetables and last but not least recycle at home and at school too!

Exploring with insects and reading a variety of books about living creaters in our world have really made us all aware of how we can take care of our world.!

Neon Play Dough!

"Who wants to make neon play dough?" "Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me and me!" The children decided on fuchsia. One drop of blue and six drops of light pink. We all measured and mixed the ingredients together and we came up with neon purple play dough. Check it out!

Game Day!

Lunch Bunch was spent playing board games, and working on our pyramid displayed in our classroom library. Check it out when you get a chance. At the end of the day we enjoyed a healthy juice pop and then we went outside to play! Thanks for a great day!

Hooray for Purim!

Once again the children listened to the story of Purim. They sat on the blue rug listening with their mouths wide open, as we told the Purim story while using finger puppets for props.

When the story was over we invited the children to come over two at a time, to the Art Center. In partners/buddies they worked on one stick puppet together. When the stick puppets dry we will all have the opportunity to play with them (Esther, King Ahashuerus, Haman, cousin Mordechai) in our palace/castle in the city of Shushan.

One teacher stayed with the two children long enough to help them work smoothly together with each other. The teacher modeled the kind of behavior we wanted to see.
We gave them the language by scripting some of the dialoge that works when working with a partner.

Getting ready....for Shabbat!

Today, Ilan enjoyed getting ready for shabbat as he explored the items we use when we celebrate together each Thursday.

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Later in the morning, we all gathered around Jack as he acted as the shabbat helper.

With a mixture of joy and seriousness, Jack said the blessings, tasted the white grape juice "wine", and gently laid his hand on the challah. Each week, the children hope it will be their turn to serve in this role. We were delighted to have Jack lead us in this ritual today.

Shabbat Shalom!

Unstructured Outside Play!

Last year Maria and I took the Lunch Bunch children to the open field just a block away to play. We brought a parachute and some balls with us in case we needed to provide a bit of structured play. When we arrived at the field the children played independently for only fifteen minutes then we took out the parachute, foam balls and after that played a game of Red Light. Unfortunately children do not have a lot of opportunities to experience unstructured play time.

On Friday Sasha and I walked on over to the field with the Tel Aviv children. We brought some scarfs, a parachute, foam balls and Shabbat snack with us. It was a very different experience than last year for me. All morning long the children played together independently. When we arrived the children ran over to the baseball field and started acting out a game of baseball! The pitcher stood on the mound and pitched to the batter at home plate. The batter swung his/her pretend bat and started to run the bases. It was a sight to behold the children took turns pitching, batting and running!

As the children explored all the nooks and crannies in and around the field they took time to smell the flowers(picked a few), noticed/talked about the bright blue sky with white clouds, walked/ran on the "cool" rock path, and picked up sticks (which we brought back for our Sukkah).

We all sat down together to enjoy a Shabbat snack. Bruce the shark joined us for some yummy challah and some wonderful conversation. After our snack the children initiated a game of hide and seek. There were not many places to hide but they made do. There was one tree and two garbage cans.

At one point during the course of the morning the children asked if they could play with the foam balls and the scarfs. They played with the balls and scarfs for about seven minutes and then they found something else that interested them(the game of hide and seek).

The children, Sasha and I had a wonderful morning playing at the field! We will do it again real soon!

Woodworking 101

Wednesday lunch bunch friends elected to have a woodworking shop. The project was to make a geo board. There was a problem, however. We had only SIX hammers and NINE boys and girls. What to do? The fair way was to put our names in a container and then the first six would get the first turn to use the hammers. There was no peeking as they drew the names. Though there was some initial disappointment in having to wait, I was very pleased to see everyone shared and took turns offering each other the hammers so there was not too much waiting.
There were different techniques exhibited, some drew the circles first, then carefully, put the nails in place and hammered away. Others decided they could just hammer the nails w/out the design.
All equally great methods of design. We did not all finish but worked very hard.