Outdoor discoveries

What do we know about trees?

 We laid our foundation for tree project and asked children to sit and just look around to observe what they saw and also think about what they already knew from their previous experiences of the outdoors. 

Jacob said :"Trees are here for a long time and get more taller." 

Josh said: " During fall and winter trees are different. After fall the leaves fall." 

Jack said: " Trees have branches." 

Eliana said: "Leaves are on the ground." 

Lilah said: " If trees stay on branches all of the seasons, there are branches to make it dark." 

Look what I found! Can we bring it in??

If we were to bring this tree in what do we need to have inside? 

Mia said: "We need the moon and grass" 

Olivia said: "We need the sun and sunset." 

Sophie Ganot said: "We need a morning and night sky." 

Then as we were coming in Reed said : "It could be G-d's Tree". 

Yes what wonderful gifts we have been given. Stay tuned as we continue to explore the wonderful world of outdoors in our inside environment. 

Musical Mondays continues ...

First we made some observations. What did we notice about about the strings on these two instruments?

Mia decided she needed to touch the strings to make her decisions, Olivia looked and decided to sketch her design before starting, Hayden noticed the strings were straight, Josh and Reed looked at the instruments ( guitar and Harp) and decided the wood piece they were given was definitely not long enough. 

Hayden was not quite certain how to proceed. She elected to observe what a peer was doing before proceeding. 

Aah the joy of accomplishments!!! Now the real test did we make music?? You might want to ask your children. 

Working together

It's not always easy to work with a large group.  There are many ideas, goals and differing ways to accomplish these goals. 

Today, Shamayim children proved that cooperation and kindness can help us accomplish our goals.

Friends asked for advice on where to place blocks and all of the children were respectful about individual block placement.

Fasten your seat belts for takeoff!

On Friday, the kindergarteners worked together to construct an airplane out of the large hollow blocks. After quickly building the airplane, the children encountered a big problem: where would everybody sit? Children began taking their seats and noticed that Brett Ellerin did not have a spot. The children offered many solutions: he could sit on the wing, on the back of the plane, he could squeeze in between two children. Together they agreed on a solution and solved the problem. As they took their seats they began their countdown. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1!  

We wrote a story... Together!

In extended day, Julian, Talia and Evan authored and illustrated a story together. They each illustrated different parts of the story and taped the pages together. Writing a book together involved discussing and negotiating ideas. They had to agree upon the plot and sequence of the story. With the idea originating from the children, they were extremely motivated to see their story from the start to finish. Below is the text of their story: 

The Little Boy that Got Lost

First, there was a guy and he rode on a mean dinosaur. And then he found his mom and his dad. And then he went in the house and then a happy witch game. It was a good witch. Then, there was a bad witch that came and tried to steal the little boy. The bad witch did not get the little boy, but the little boy got lost. The mom and the dad lived happily ever after in the farm. And then another dinosaur came and gobbled them up for dinner.

Taking care of our classroom together!

Last week we learned how to use the Adamah clean up necklaces! Here is how it works...
The children have the same job for an entire week. When the teachers ask the children to clean up the classroom, the children go over to their picture on the wall and place their necklace around their neck( their necklace is hanging below their picture). They are asked to look at the picture on their necklace and clean up that area of the classroom.

Adamah's Classroom Jobs

-Block Center (2)
-Snack helper(1
-Table wiper(2)
-Art Center(2)
-Dramatic Play/ loft(2)
- Librarian (2)
-Sensory Table(2)
-Table 1(1)
-Writing Center (1)

How do you take care of babies?

Hannah and Grace picked up a sleeping baby and walked into the Dramtic Dramatic Play Center. Hannah said, "Let's take care of the babies!" I asked, "How do you take care of a baby? " Hannah said, "Take the baby to the doctor for an infection". Then I asked the group, "What do you do if the baby is hungry?" Hannah said, "Feed it yogurt". Hannah announced ,"For boo,boo's give kisses and bandages". Baliey made soup and Alex served fresh fruit as the babies napped. Taking care of babies is a lot of work!

Chuppah making Stage II

We continued our building, hammering, holding, and making it stable.  Stage one complete: we have 4 poles, it is stable ( some tape needed to secure) What else did we need? Max and Eli get started on some decorations. The Etzim class shared some of their flowers that they were going to use for their castle. Thank you Laura and Steve and Etzim boys and girls for sharing your materials so we could complete our Chuppah.  As we were creating our Chuppah Brett said it reminded him of our Sukkah building. The children carefully selected the flowers they wanted and started the process of gluing it on Chuppah. Yes it is very similar. It is created to welcome people. In this case the bride and groom. It is finally May 28th and Larry is coming. ( not Larry Bird, but Larry Tobin) just clarifying.

It's Chuppah Time

The Kohavim boys and girls have been anticipating the arrival of the mysterious "Larry". The planning was in process for our wedding celebration. What did we need to prepare for our celebration? Sasha volunteered to share the research project she prepared with her 2nd and 3rd grade Mayim Students. Thank you Sasha for sharing your knowledge with us! The Kohavim boys and girls looked at the blueprint plan for the Chuppah and discovered we had much work to do. We needed 4 poles, but only had two. What are we going to do?? After some careful observation they indicated that we needed to gather more sticks. What kind of sticks? How could ensure we were collecting the size we needed? Noah suggested getting a measuring tape. Sabrina volunteered to record the measurements. It was determined we needed sticks that were at least 56 inches long. Off we went on our expedition for more sticks. We collected sticks and started our construction of our Chuppah. Much team work and problem solving involved!!!

Building together

The Keshet children found a very large basket of magna-tiles when they arrived this morning.  We saw various individuals and groups doing a lot of experimenting with them.    There were multi level buildings where each floor contained open space, solid towers, AND a superhero rescue from the top of a tower.  Last but not least, it seems that Ethan may have created a new wing for the Natick Collection!

Focus, determination, and teamwork were all evident as the children worked.  Physics lessons are learned in our experimentation as well.

Picnic Compromise

Today Haifa Lunch Bunch wanted to go on a picnic. Some of us were more enthusiastic than others about the idea, so we decided to compromise. we had an indoor picnic followed by outside play with Etzim! Nice negotiating, Haifa!

What can you find in nature?

Jacob and Molly spent some of the morning collecting things found in nature. By providing a wooden box with dividers, the children were inspired to collect found objects and sort them into the different spaces. Jacob and Molly collect smooth stones, large stones, sticks, baby acorns, and purple flowers. Observing, sorting, and classifying are important mathematical skills that the children were engaging with while enjoying the wonder of nature around them!

We're building a Bigger tower !!

We are seeing an evolution in the style of play in our classroom.  You can see in the photos that a small group worked at building a very tall tower.  What started as one child's project changed as others joined in and made their own contributions to the construction.  There is also some discussion as the children work together.  The blocks vary in size by color.  Notice how the kids sort them and arrange them in their project.

Every Garage Needs a Pinecone

Josh, Jacob, and Audrey were hard at work building a garage when Josh realized it needed one more piece, a pinecone topper!

Team Building Games!

The children are learning life skills via playing games!  Balloon-o is a team building game that challenges two children to work together to place all the free floating balloons on the floor into the baskets, using only a noodle or stick.  The children are asked not use their body(hands, feet,head) to place the balloon in the baskets.  The whole group is asked to work together with their partner to collect the balloons and beat the clock!

Build and Crash is a great team building game!  The children are asked to work together to build tall structures with the whole group.  Before they start building they are asked to pick one or two children to be the crashers.  The crashers are the people that knock down the structures.  They can choose the method in which they want to knock the structure down...rolling on their belly on a dolie head first, then crashing into the structure, throwing bean bags or rolling a ball.  Once the structure is knocked down the children are eager to work together to build again so the crashers can do their part!  Everyone takes turns being the crashers!

Decisions, Decisions....

The children have been encouraged to think about ways they can take care of their world.  One way is to make things using recycled materials. Some children decided they could make their costumes. There was a great deal of thought and planning involved in this process. First one had to think about what they wanted to be, what materials they needed to be the character they selected, how they were going to accomplish the task of making the costumes, which involved fittings and measuring.  With a little teacher help, and guidance, the children started the process. Not everyone could start at the same time. A lot of waiting and patience involved in this process.

Taking care of G-d's Creatures....

We made the food, hung the bird cookies, and the next day the food was gone. You might want to ask your children what they think happened? Was it a squirrel or a bird??

Roads Everywhere!

After lunch the Tel Aviv children decided to build a road with the wooden blocks, the length of the classroom.  Josh walked over to where the road ended and said, "This is where  California is."   Charlotte moved her toy car along the wooden road with her hand, all the way to "California".   When she turned her car around and went the other way she said, "Let's go this way, back to Natick!"

Elias, Micah and Adam asked me to help make their wooden road "bigger".   I asked them if they had any suggestions as to how we could make the road bigger?  Elias asked, "Do we have any tape?"  We asked Jesse if we could borrow her tape and then went to work!   We proceeded to extend the wooded road with the tape all over the blue rug.

In the Art Center Micah, Adam and Josh shifted gears and announced ,I am going to make roads on my paper!"   Micah Gladstone suggested we make traffic lights for our roads.   He said," I am going to make four traffic lights because I am four years old."

Roads here, roads there, roads were everywhere!

Sukkah Time~ What does it take? Teamwork

A board with numbers?

Today we introduced a board with numbers and a message on the number 11.  Some noticed that perhaps it was a calendar. One classmate said that "we did not start school on a Saturday so why was there a number "1" on a Saturday. This prompted another discussion about what other messages we could put on the our boards and what ways we can use a calendar in our daily lives? Stay tuned for important events we hear about to post on our calendar!

We decided we could put important events on the dates to help us remember what was happening on these days. Well today the message was "Maria's birthday". What does "birthday" mean we asked. "It's when we turn to another age, it's like when you turn 4 or 5 and go to a new school, it's like when you turn 5 then 6, it's a day you celebrate the day you were born."

Jesse had prepared a banner for the children to decorate for me. She asked the children what they thought Maria would like on the banner. She might like "cake," "her kids," "hearts because she likes the class," "Kohavim kids." Commenting on that idea, the children said "No, don't draw her kids. Draw the Kohavim kids because she wants to be a teacher."
 I am truly so very blessed to be learning alongside these Kohavim children.Thank you to all the boys and girls for their thoughtfulness and hard work.