The forest in the Ruach class

I wonder who or what lives in the forest. Children were free to develop their own stories while they manipulated the characters in the scene. 

Rosie's Place - Tzedakah-

We asked your children what they knew about Tzedakah and they responded that it was giving money to people who need it. One if our goals this year is to think about Tzedakah as a daily responsibility. Jacob shared that once he found a penny in the beach and put it in his piggy bank Tzedakah, Eliana shared that she gave food to a girl who then gave it to people who need it, Sophie Sherman shared her nana gives clothes to someone else. Today we made pasta for those at Rosie's place. There are lots of ways we can help. We can think of buying pasta, velveeta cheese for Tzedakah. We introduced the concepts of Acts of Chesed - kindness towards others- those volunteers at Rosie's place that cook and serve meals and us for all all prep work all are acts of Chesed or loving  kindness towards others. Stay tuned as we explore these concepts through out the year and work together to develop ways  we can make the world better by our efforts !!

Musical Monday Lunch Bunch

During our first week of lunch bunch we discussed various interests in an effort to make Lunch bunch a meaningful experience. This is consistent with our belief that developing curriculum  around children's interest will foster a love of learning.  The Monday lunch bunch group decided that they wanted to do "Banding" otherwise known as making some beautiful music together.  We brought in some pictures of different musical instruments and introduced string instruments. ( we will get to wind and percussion instruments later)

The children had an opportunity to look at two string instruments: the guitar and the harp. I asked them to observe both. What what the same and what was different. It was determined they they were similar in that they both had strings and both were made of wood and both had holes in them. Then I asked them to consider the sound and make a prediction, if they would sound the same or different? Mia tests out her predictions. You might want to ask your children what they thought. Observing, thinking, and making predictions are important life skills. My hope is that as we explore different musical instruments, we will create our own music using recycled materials and make a musical garden outside. I had the privilege of visiting the Irvine school in Baltimore that had an outdoor garden which was very much used.

Recycled Materials Musical Garden

If you have any materials similar to those seen please feel free to donate for our percussion musical garden. Thank you !!

Torah, Torah, Torah....

We welcome the Torah on Shabbat in community. As we began to discuss the joyous occasion of the Simchat Torah we explained that this holiday was special because it was a celebration of the gift of the Torah to Moses and  the Jewish people by G-d. We asked the children what they knew about the Torah. Their responses were: "it had Hebrew letters, it was very, very, very special, and it was in every classroom." We agree the Torah is our very special gift from G-d, filled with stories that when read really help us to be better people. It takes a scribe/sofer a year to write the Torah. The pages are hand sewn not glued like one might expect. We asked the children to think about ways that they can make a difference and establish guidelines that would would be helpful reflecting on both actions and words.

The following are the guidelines the children dictated:

1) "Do stuff that is nice, give people what they need."
2) Sharing, give money to Hebrew people."
3) "Be sure you're ok"
4) "You can play and you can share."
5) "Pick up trash, and ask if you're ok"
6) "Go around the monkey bars, say are you ok?, hugging people.I know you wnat to do this but agree with one another and go one at a time."
7) "I can clean up in the woods."
8) "Put scissors on the table"
9) "Say are you ok? You can give hug."
10) "Wait your turn to go down the slide., stay with your mom and dad, help people put their things away."
11)  "Be nice and say please and thank you."
12) "Take care of toys and be gentle."

We finished sewing our Torah together and read it together using a yad. We told the children that perhaps one day they may want to be a scribe. We explained that it take a very long time to write but also to study in order to be a scribe.

I found a .???

 Oh my the woods have come inside!!! Noah and Max Goldberg made some discoveries in the log that was brought in. There were some critters living inside.  Max Goldberg indicated that these critters were "rolly pollies". Initially they came out of the log. Then in their enthusiasm the boys started to hammer away w/ sticks to hurry the process along. This led to a discussion of how we could take care of them?? Why did they think the rolly pollies came out by themselves but then were resistent to come out when they ware banging on their house?

It's Pictionary Time

We have been introducing the children to various means of communicating ideas. We can express ourselves in many different ways: our voices,  sign language, and also art. Max and Sabrina decided to play a game of pictionary. They first had to decide who was going to be first. After some discussion it was decided Sabrina would be the first to draw and Max had to guess. You may want to take a guess yourself. Then it was Max's turn and on it went. It was interesting that the pictures became more difficult to guess. Clearly the goal of each participant was to stump the other play. We could hear.. this is going to be REALLY hard. A lot of planning, thinking, turn taking, and friendship.

Tu B Shevat Wonders

We introduced this Jewish holiday as the birthday of the trees. We have many educational and fun filled  activities that we will be exploring. As is our tradition in the Kohavim class we ask the children what they know and think about what we are exploring.
We know what it means when we celebrate our birthday, but what does/could it mean that we celebrate the birthday of trees? What does that mean?

"The trees turn another age. They grow bigger. They want to celebrate with each other. They grow so high, higher than anybody. When they first turn 1, they grow from a tree seed."

What do trees give to us? we asked.

"Air" said Molly.
"They actually make you breathe" said Brett.
"Paper" said Zack.
"Food" said Brett.
 "Oranges" said Rachel.
 "Bananas" said Jacob.
"Leaves" said Sabrina. When holidays come, you can make things pretty with them. "
"When it is a hot day, they give us a breeze" said Max Greenstein.
"Trees give us shade" said Sabrina.
"Flowers" said Molly.
"Give us flour for cooking", said Sabrina.

One of our year long goals and also a Jewish value, is our responsibility to take care of one another and as guardians of the earth, take care of all of the natural blessings we have been given. Sooo we asked:

What can WE do to take care of the earth.

"We can plant another tree" said Rachel.
" WE can decorate them" said Molly.
"Give them a brother, we could plant another tree" said Brett.
"We could give them water" said Ezra.
"We could dress them for their birthday." said Sabrina
"Give the trees balloons" said Jacob.

We will be exploring further and perhaps with planting, experiencing the fruit of trees, listening to stories of trees, how we can take care of the world, and as always, as is our tradition, thanking G-d for our blessings.

Sooo stay tuned...

Lunch bunch conversations...

One of the best part of lunch bunch is the casual conversations the children have with one another as they eat in small groups. One of the gifts we can give our children is the freedom to express their ideas in a safe environment and question and seek answers without fear. It was amazing to be the listener in this conversation which just materialized as they were chatting with one another.

"God made moms to make people," said Zack.

"Who was the first one who had the first mom?" responded Dylan.

"Our mommy's mom. God made moms and dads so that moms could make us so we could be alive." said Zack.

"I know God made people, cuz people come out of moms' bellies."

Dylan continued to question and wonder... How could mommies be little babies, then who would be in the belly?

Zack said, "Moms and dads are kids to some people."

WOW is all one could say.

Water, Leaves, and Cold ???

Some Kohavim boys and girls noticed some leaves stuck on the picnic table outside. "What could it be?" we asked. Some children thought it was ice. What was this before it turned into ice? Hannah said, "water."

Then the children decided to do an experiment. They worked hard to crush the ice into little pieces and move it to the wooden picnic table. Molly and Brett kept an eye on the broken ice to see if it changed.  It was time to go in to prepare for our morning meeting, and no changed was noticed. I wonder what would happen to these pieces of ice with the passage of time away? Some children speculated that it would melt.

When we came out, Molly went immediately to the table to check up on their experiment. When asked what she thought happened to the ice, she replied that it melted because of the "warm sun". Our natural world has so much to wonder about and experiment with if we take the time to notice. Thank you boys and girls for your gift of wonder.

Who do we invite to our Thanksgiving Feast

 The children decided to invite the Tel Aviv boys and girls to a Thanksgiving feast. We needed to make our invitations. What important information did we need to put on our invitatons to the Tel Aviv class?? What did they need to know? You might want to ask your children what answers they came up with??

 

 

Acts of Chesed.. Loving Kindness

One of the guiding themes in the Kohavim class is nurturing the Jewish value of taking care of others. This book is a wonderful book with many different themes. It is beautifully illustrated, fun, and magical. You might want to ask your children about it. (Hint: The characters are Sadie, Old Woman, and the brothers Herschel, Hillel, Hayim and baby Max.) 

It is a story of a family living in Russia who is very, very poor. The setting is winter time and the family is hungry and very cold. Sadie goes out to the woods to gather some wood to light a fire. On her route she meets an old wrinkled woman who is even more poor than her. She generously gives the old woman the wood she has collected and the old woman gives her a magical pan with strict instructions on what to chant to get the magic to happen. (Ask your children about this.)

We asked your children to tell us what it means to be poor. And their responses were thoughtful and varied. "You have no money, no toys, no food, no jacket, no nothing!"  So we asked, "Well is there something WE could do to help?" The child had such a long list of ideas. We could give money, blankets, pillows, food, or buy them a house. Stay tuned...

Who is the 'Boss'???

The children were sitting announcing to one another "I am the oldest" , "no I am the oldest!!!" We wondered why they were trying to determine who was the oldest and what the concept of being the oldest meant to them. As the discussion evolved their comments were interesting. It soon became clear the 'oldest' meant that they would be the 'BOSS'. We asked Why did they think that the oldest would be the boss to which they responded: "because they know the most stuff, the oldest knows the most stuff because they are bigger." Then as their thinking progressed one child responded " but my dad doesn't remember everything and I remember everything." So the question became so when you are younger your remember more?? As the conversation continued, another person responded " Well that's because when it gets further from that time ( meaning young) you kind of don't remember." So who is the boss?? We all have much to learn from one another....

What's in the Box??

 Last week there was a huge delivery. The Kohavim boys and girls were very excited to uncover the mystery. They started singing a song they learned from Tina in her lunch bunch on Wednesdays.. "What 's in the box, what's in the box, sweat socks, Goldilocks what's in the box?" It took a great deal of team work to get the boxes open and quite a bit of persistence. What tools could we use? Our hands, scissors??? The mystery was solved;we received a delivery of chairs and tables. There was ONE problem. The legs and tops of the tables we not assembled. What could we do?? They had to figure out how to assemble the legs securely. They were so proud when they accomplished the task of putting them together.

Bucket of Kindness

 Our Jewish traditions are filled much responsibility towards caring for all G-d's creations,  the earth, ourselves, and others. How can we communicate these essential  Jewish values in a meaningful manner? Modeling kindness, behaving in in a sensitive way and careful manner so that we don't hurt other feelings ( Derech Eretz) doing  good deeds for others ( Gemilut Chasadim), share with others as a regular ongoing responsibility (Tzedakah) and caring for our environment ( Bal Tash 'heet) and caring for our animals ( Tzar Ba'alei Chaim). These will be year long goals for our children.
The book  entitled "Have you filled your Bucket Today" is an excellent book to remind us to stay true to our values.

 

 

Just Imagine

Team Gimmel summer class came into class on Monday to find an Imaginarium Marble game. They were very excited to build, putting the tubes together in different ways to get higher, and watch the marble go down the tubes. There were MANY different ways to manipulate the tubes for the desired product. The best part for me was listening to them ask one another for help. At one point someone asked "how do you get so good at building" and the response was "practice". When they were done building I often heard "oh that's sick dude". Sounds like teenager talk, but so cute.

What's the difference???

Same paper, same water colors, but we did ONE thing different? Can you guess what we did differently??? Answer tomorrow... stay tuned for what we did differently and why they thought this one thing changed the artistic process of the water colors?

Helping Hands

Sometimes children elect to stay in after dismissal and right before lunch bunch. I always welcome their participation in lunch bunch set up if they want. Today Sam elected to stay in. I asked Sam what we needed to do to finish setting up for lunch. The tables were set, but there was something missing. Sam responded we needed napkins, then quickly asked, "How about we use place mats?" and then asked, "How about I write names on them so they know where they are sitting?"

Off he went checking the lunch bunch list and writing all the names of classmates who stay on Tuesday. He then proceeded to place them on the table. As he was placing the mats down and he came to Teddy Fox's name, he said he knew Teddy Fox liked to sit next to Mia for lunch bunch and he had to move a placemat because with three on the table it was too crowded. As children came in for lunch he explained how he set up the placemats knowing who usually sits with whom. Mia was quick to thank Sam for his thoughtfulness.  After all the placemats were set, he said, "Miss Maria you don't have one, you need one." So I wrote my name. Thank you, Sam for your helping hands and your thoughtfulness towards your classmates and me.

My name is "Rosie"

 Last week we had a new visitor for early morning fun. Rosie is in the Rainbow class. She came early because her sister had a play about the very same time as her Rainbow class. I think the first thing she noticed were the flowers set up at the water table. She was quick to share that mommy loves flowers. We had a birthday celebration in the Kohavim class so the cupcakes were set up with pipe cleaners for pretend candles. There were bears, frogs, and butterflies. Rosie shared that she wanted to fill the bear cupcakes and off she went filling each bear. When Rachel came in she helped as did Teddy Friedman when we needed more candles.

Daddy made Rosie two ducks with the floam, but when daddy left, Rosie said, those ducks needed a 'pond', so she smashed the floam and put the ducks right on top. It was just big enough for the 'small' duck. All the flowers inspired Rosie to say she wanted to make a card for mommy. She asked me to draw a picture of her mommy. We talked about how I could do that. What did I need to do? What shapes would I need? She said I needed a face and it was a circle. Then mommy needed eyes, nose, mouth, body, hands, feet and hair. Mommy's hair is 'curly' so she needed curly hair. Then mommy's card needed "Rosie" as well.

After the picture of mommy and Rosie was drawn, she asked me to please write "Moma" and "Rosie". Then the card needed a car and a train track.. It was so much fun to talk to Rosie and share in her excitement and story telling. Thank you for coming. I hope you come again to share in more morning fun.

Team work at its Best

 It was a great deal of work and the children helped to accomplish the task of completing the base for our outside planter. We needed strong hands to hold the ends while others cut using a saw.  Lots of helping hands. It took 3 pieces, but they weren't all the same size. Lots of measuring and cutting to make it just right. Luckily we had many boys and girls willing to help.  Thank you boys and girls for all your hard work.

Oh NO~ It does't fit!!!

 We have had a planter in the playground which was missing the base. The wood pieces were purchased, but there was a problem, it did not fit! What could we do? We presented the children with this challenge. They responded that it needed to be cut smaller. Well, what tools do we need to do this? How are we going to know the exact size it needed? Nathaniel and Teddy Friedman were the first architects to the scene but soon Eli, Leo, Ryan, and Avram came to investigate and help us to problem solve. We put our hard hats on, but I was quickly told it wasn't really a hard hat, as they were soft. Since we first determined it needed to be smaller, how are we going to ensure it fit just right into the base? Leo said that it needed to be in a shape of a rectangle and demonstrated. Back to the question of 'sizing' what tool can we use to measure things? They carefully place the wood piece on top and we used a tape measure to measure the size from one end to the other. Teddy Friedman carefully drew the line and we were now certain it would be the right size. How could we cut it? It was very hard and we needed a sharp cutting tool? Luckily we had a saw handy and off we went. Presenting children with opportunities to think and problem solve increases their confidence and allows them to apply what they have learned about shapes and tools and apply this pre existing knowledge to practical  real life experiences. Isn't that what real knowledge is after all.. Knowledge does not come from the object or the child but the interaction of the two!!!