Dear Room 13 Families,
What a busy, wonderful week we have had. We began our week, like we do each week, with a beautiful class Havdalah service. As we listened to the rain and hail fall, we sat in darkness and watched as the Havdalah candle lit up our room! With the holiday of Tu BiSh’vat (the New Year of the Trees) quickly approaching, we have and will continue to delve into the importance and meaning of the holiday. We began by discussing what makes trees important to us and to our world. Making the connection with the story of creation, we discussed how trees provide us with many things; air, shade, fruit and how in turn, we must look after the trees, making sure they are healthy and getting enough sun and water. We discussed how on Tu BiSh’vat, we also think of our planet and how we can take care of it. We will continue to discuss what this actually means to us over the next few weeks. We then delved into the physical aspects of the trees, discussing the parts of a tree (starting with a seed, sprouting roots, growing a trunk, branches, leaves and sometimes flowers and fruit). We even learned a silly song that reminds us of each of these parts. At the Art Center, the children had the opportunity to paint their own trees, keeping in mind all the different parts we had just learned about. Since it was still raining and we could not go and observe the trees, we decided to read the book, “The Giving Tree.” However, instead of just reading it in English, the children heard the book, twice, once in Hebrew and once in English. We read it page by page in both languages, so the children could hear it in Hebrew, and have an understanding of what was going on while it was read in Hebrew. The children loved hearing and seeing the book in this way. On Wednesday, finally, the sun came out! The children were so excited to get back outside and explore nature, so naturally, we went on a nature walk. Immediately, the excitement grew when the children saw their shadows on the ground! We kept an eye on them, noticing how sometimes our shadows were in front of us, sometimes to the side, sometimes in the back and sometimes they even disappeared. Ariana told us that, “if we move over there (pointing into the sun) our shadow will come back.” To which Dylan added, “because this side doesn’t have sun and that side does.” As we continued to walk, Samuel, full of enthusiasm, pointed to the ground saying, “Shadow! The tree has a shadow!” The children continued to find shadows all throughout the rest of our walk. As we walked around to the back of the Temple, the children began to collect, in their own bags, items from nature; leaves, branches and even small flower buds. We walked around our campus, observing the trees, plants and flowers all around. After arriving back at our classroom, the children had the opportunity to share one item they found on our walk. Then on Thursday, we created collages using the other items they collected. We ended our week with an experiment using seed pods and a special plant grower. Over the next few weeks, we will continue to observe the pods, see if and how they grow and compare them to other planting that we will be doing over the next few weeks. Throughout our week, the children had many activities available to them at our centers. At the Art Center, after discussing the parts of trees, the children used paint and paintbrushes of all different sizes, to paint their own trees and after our nature walk, the children created a collage, full of the natural materials that they collected. They used scissors and their hands to break up the leaves and sticks and placed them on contact paper. At the Literacy Center, the children used thick tweezers to build their hand and finger muscles, to move small blocks, pompoms and glass beads from one small bowl on the left to another bowl on the right. They also had white boards available, where some children traced letters and others drew pictures, using the thick white board markers. At the Math Center, the children filled tubes with balls based on the number at the top of the tube (once they reached the number, the tube was full) and placed links onto an elephants trunk based on the number on the elephant. When working with the tubes, even if a child is unaware of the digit at the top, it is a self-correcting activity. However, if the child is ready, he or she could move to the more difficult activity of the elephants and links. We had the opportunity to go to the school Library and hear two wonderful books, “The Baby House” and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” picked out by Ariana and Mia. Thank you so much to Renee for joining us and reading to us at this time. On Thursday, we had a great time singing songs about rain and sun (since the sun had finally made an appearance) with Andrew. We ended our week by celebrating a beautiful Shabbat with Lev and his family. Shabbat Shalom, Your Room 13 Teachers Reminders: *Please remember to sign your child in and out, with a legible signature, EVERY day. If you have a high-lighted section, it means we need your signature or time in that space, as well as your normal spot for the day. *We continue to begin our circle at 9:20 AM. Please do your best to arrive before then. *Monday, January 30th – Picture Day *Friday, February 3rd – Skyler and Family – 10:15 *February 6th – February 10th – Father’s and Grandfather’s Week Monday, the 6th- 9:15-10:00 - school wide Havdalah service in the Sanctuary Tuesday, the 7th- 9:30-10:30 – our class TuBiSh’vat Seder Wednesday, the 8th- 9:30-10:00 - story time in the classroom Friday, the 10th- 9:00 – 10:00 – challah baking and circle time 10:00 – 11:00 – Father’s and Grandfather’s Day Brunch 11:00 – 11:45 – Father’s and Grandfather’s Day Shabbat
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