While many of us enjoyed playing in the snow this past winter, we are excited to welcome the season of spring!

Here are some of the signs of spring that we are looking forward to:

• green grass
• leaves on trees
• flowers and plants
• birds and butterflies
• warm, sunny days
• lots of rain
• people outside
• the ice cream truck
• rainbows
• fish
• baby animals
• insects

We began working on our spring mural.

The children painted the landscape including a grassy hill and a lake:

They created flowers, trees, birds, etc. to add to the mural:

Once they have finished making the signs of spring and we have pinned them to our mural, we will begin writing labels for the different objects to also add to our mural. We will post pictures to our blog once the mural is completed!

We have been working on counting on, which is a mental math strategy to add two numbers.  The children used beads and pipe cleaners to create counting tools, and practiced starting with the larger number in an equation and counting up.

This week we read My Lucky Day. Ask your child which character actually had the lucky day, and ask them to explain the surprising conclusion of the story.

New sight words:

• are
• that
• do

Amazing vocabulary words:

• fox
• piglet
• lucky
• scrubber
• filthy
• cooks

 

 

We’ve been enjoying some very busy weeks in Kindergarten!

We read Then and Now and learned how things we use today are different from things we used long ago.

Then

• Children played with toy cars molded out of metal

Now

• While metal toy cars still exist, now we can also play with remote control cars.

Then

• Children built with wooden log sets (We can still build with wooden log sets and we even have one in our classroom!)

Now

• We can build with construction kits that have wheels, gears, and motors to make machines move on their own.

Then

• Children played games such as hopscotch.

Now

• Although hopscotch is also still played, now we have playground equipment with different activity areas such as climbing walls and zip lines.

Then

• Schools were very different. Children of all ages used to sit next to one another on benches and listen to the teacher.

Now

• Children work at centers, tables, and desks, and learn from one another as well.

Then

• People used handwritten letters to correspond with people living far away.

Now

• We can send emails and correspond via webcams. (We also learned how webcams have changed).

Then

• Children went to school by horse and buggy.

Now

• We can get to school by walking, taking the school bus, cars, bikes, etc.

Then

• A long time ago, telephones didn’t have buttons or dials, and operators had to connect calls by plugging in different wires.

Now

• People can use cell phones/smart phones to make calls from anywhere.

Then

• People did laundry by scrubbing wet clothes on washboards in large tubs and hanging them to dry.

Now

• We have washers and dryers

Then

• Phonographs were a popular way to play music

Now

• Now we can download music.

Then

• People listened to adventure stories, funny skits, and mysteries on the radio.

Now

• People watch movies and shows on televisions.

Some of our Amazing Words:

• gears
• handwritten
• headphones
• webcam
• phonograph
• newspapers

New sight words:

• they
• you
• of

The children practiced counting objects by twos and fives and started organizing groups of five using tally marks.

 

Each child was given a bag with an ice cube and had to figure out the fastest way to melt it.

Between our resting mats:

Inside a puppet:

 

Underneath a lamp:

 

In the sunshine:

 

Over the heater:

 

Under the warm water:

 

Afterwards, the children wrote and illustrated the ways in which they attempted to melt their ice cube.

We celebrated our 100th day of school! We took our 10 bundles of ten, put them together with an elastic band, and moved them to the hundreds column:

Each child selected three “prizes” to represent the three digits in the number one hundred. We counted out one hundred M&Ms and enjoyed cupcakes!

 

 

 

Dear Kindergarten families!

What a great few weeks we have had together in our classroom!

We would like to share with you a few of the exciting things we are learning:

Hebrew:

Mem– We had such a wonderful time making mems  filled with objects that begin with the letter   mem, like  menora, mayim (water),  melech (king),  malka (queen)… and more. We also used  misparayim (scissors) to cut magen david (star of david).

Zayin- We took the opportunity to  introduce the demonstrative pronouns zeh (“this”, masculine) and zot (“this”, feminine), very complicated and sophisticated concepts. We will continue to practice using these words. Then we made a connection to our learning about Tu Bishvat, and we filled the letter  zayin with zeitim (olives), and outline the letter with a lot of zahav (gold) glitter. Finally we discovered that we can turn the letter  zayin into the head of  a Zebra. You are welcome to our classroom to see our beautiful artwork.

Yud– After we played with play dough creating the letter   yud with play dough, we discovered that  yud is the smallest letter in the aleph-bet. When we learned that yad (hand) begins with yud we decided to hand paint our yadayim (hands) in yarok (green) color. As always we were excited to make a connection to our learning about Israel and we discovered that both Israel and Yerushalayim begin with yud. We then drew beautiful pictures of Yerushalayim. We had so much fun!

 

Holidays:

Spring in Israel- the adama is ready for planting etzim.

We made sunflowers, poppy and cyclements

We celebrated  a Tu Bishvat Seder together with Pre -K practicing the bracha  “bore pri ha-etz…”

            

           

 

Parasha

In this story  we studied the kindness of  Rivkah to  Eliezer and his g’malim (camels). We had a long discussion about kindness to animals and the children told of how they take care of their pets. When Rivkah came to the ohel of Abraham and Sarah she met Itzchak. They got married and had twins after many prayers. The twins grew up together, but were very different from each other: Esav liked hunting in the field while Yaakov preferred to stay home and learn. When time came to get the special bracha (blessing) of the firstborn, Rivkah encouraged Yaakov to trick his father Itzchak into giving him the bracha instead of Esav. What do you think about that? It was hard for us to understand how Rivkah  could suggest that,  and how it was okay for  Yaakov to do it. We discussed it for a long time: some of us thought it was okay, because after all it was a trade (soup for bracha) that Esav agreed to. That led to another conversation – was that a fair trade?

Esav got angry after he realized what happened and Yaakov decided to escape to his uncle Lavan until his brother Esav calmed down. One night during his journey Yaakov dreamt of angles climbing up and down a tall ladder. Do you think the angles told him something?

Simon- “Well, maybe there are some lions, you should watch out.”

Moshe- “There is a well next to you, drink before you keep going.”

Hannah- “Show kavod to lavan and his family.”

Naftali- “Don’t get lost.”

Maya- “Maybe the angels wanted him to wake up  because they wanted to tell him something.”

Ella- “When you wake up stay focused and remember where you are going and keep going on.”

Noam- ” go faster before Esav catches you.”

Ayden- “Don’t forget to eat before you start walking.”

Hadas- “Don’t be scared to walk by yourself.”

 

These are the answers of our amazing rabbis!

 

 

We wish you a great time with your family.

 

Ilana, Jessica and Emily