Going from strength to strength . . .

Planning the quilt . . .

The final design . . .

Making Connections: Textiles and Sefer Shmot

This coming Shabbat, in our yearly learning of Parsha, we complete Sefer Shmot by reading a double portion, Vayakhel and Pekudai. Sefer Shmot, the book of Exodus, describes B'nai Israel's enslavement, followed by the narrative of our physical and spiritual liberation. In our Parsha studies, we have used drama and a felt-board recreation to act out several "scenes." We also danced, played rhythm instruments and sang. We learned a lot, and we had fun.

Our final Sefer Shmot activity was creating a small quilt wall-hanging. This was a natural tie-in with our Textile project. We worked in pairs to design each square, one for each Parsha, on a piece of paper. We then transferred our design to cloth using fabric markers. There was a signficant amount of discussion about what to include in each square, and how to go about the process. This conversation offered a meaningful review of the Sefer for the Gan children and it spurred them on to ask good, solid questions.

Our quilt is now complete, ready to hang up for all to enjoy. Stop by when you can with your child--ask him/her to describe some of the pictures and share the learning with you. Chazak, Chazak, v'Nitzchzek! May we go from strength to strength!

The Babies

The babies are very busy as well exploring and learning with different materials. We gave them some lamination paper, bubble wrap, a piece of streamer, and a feather to experiment with. Ryann liked the wrinkling sound of the lamination paper while Maayan liked the softness of the bubble wrap. Neither one seemed interested in the streamer or the feather. Maybe because they were not as fun and pleasant to their senses of touch and taste!

Then, Morah Gila played some games with them. Of course, their favorite was Peek-a-boo!

Feather Painting

How fun would it be to paint with something other than a paint brush? We decided to find out and try feathers!

The kids loved it and their creativity really took flight! In conversation, we heard "Look, I am making purple!" and "Look at my design!"

Then they tried painting with the tip of the feather and they found out that they could make lines in the paint.

It was so much fun that we decided to try some other materials to paint with so stay tuned over the next few weeks for more....

Creating a Bird House

A few weeks ago, Jesse's dad came to visit Gan Bet to share about his job: building and selling houses. After his PowerPoint Presentation, he brought a birdhouse for Gan Bet to build. He helped each student take part in putting it together, and then there was a consensus from the class that it needed to be painted before it was hung up in the garden.

Today we planned to paint the birdhouse but first sat down as a class for some planning. Shoshana and I explained that we were going to brainstorm ideas, writing everyone's thoughts on the board before deciding anything. We were impressed with many of the ideas that we got:

"Two people could do it at a time."
"Teachers call one student at a time while others do the next thing on the schedule."
"Paint a bird with a chick next to it."
"A big bird with all the colors on each side."
"We could use green for grass and put a bird and flowers, so it will be like the whole outside."

While we originally planned to call over small groups of students at a time to paint, we were especially impressed that our students had already started to think about how they could each have a turn painting and take part without everyone swarming the small birdhouse at once.

Once the birdhouse is completely decorated, we will all help choose a place in the garden for the birdhouse to stay.

The Megillah: A kindergarten creation

Kindergarten students, amidst a long-term investigation of textiles, use textured and printed paper to devise a megillah. Notice our focus on Hebrew language to build children's skills along with our use of English to make the megillah more accessible.

Maayan and the light table!

One day, Morah Gila held Baby Maayan up at the light table so he can explore the legos, lights, and his reflections! He seemed very interested and quickly grabbed at the bucket of legos.

We then noticed that Siena came and wanted to show Baby Maayan how to take the legos out. She played for a few minutes and left.

Next came Ryann and she took a lego out and showed Baby Maayan what he needs to do with it- put it in his mouth!! Baby Maayan gave her a look and continued exploring!

What a cool and helpful first encounter at the light table!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

All week, we have been preparing for Dr. Seuss' birthday, which is today, Friday, March 2. We did rhyming activities, since Dr. Seuss' books all rhyme--and we know that sometimes he even makes up words to make the rhymes work!

During Quiet Time, we read different books by Dr. Seuss, and today we took all our Dr. Seuss books and put them in the Book Nook.

Today instead of reading stories aloud, all three Gan classes watched three animated versions of his stories on the Smart Board.

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss,

Your rhyming words have been of use.

This week we rhymed a lot in class,

How quickly all our time did pass.

Enjoy your weekend at your home,

See you Monday, Shabbat shalom!

The Drama is Real

It is almost Purim. Most the children have some familiarity with the story, and yet we go over it again. And again. And again. We pass on our traditions, our memories--but there is always something new in each retelling.



This year, we told the story by sharing books, songs and drama. We have puppets and toy clowns in class which bring an element of fun to the story of the Megillah. By linking the message with a positive experience, we seek to increase the child's awareness of the importance of our traditions. Purim is not simply about delicious hamantashen and loud noisemakers. We learn about brave Esther and steadfast Mordechai. These are our heroes--these are the people whom we want to emulate. This is the tradition we want to uphold and pass on to our children.


So of course we wanted to reproduce the story for ourselves. We made our own Megillot. We have been involved in long-term investigation of textiles. We chose to create our Megillot from textured wallpaper and gift-wrap papers that resemble fabric. It was fun work and some of the small details were difficult, but all of us are pleased with the results.

We thought about the Hebrew text on each page and created our design to match the words. We selected our decorative papers carefully. Morah Anat helped us with some advice. Earlier, Morah Devi had explained to us how to go about creating a collage. We were up to the task.

The results clearly reflect our knowledge and traditions, with a new twist that showcases our Gan year and our textile project. The Megillah is rich in color and texture. With the accompanying Hebrew CD and the translated text, we are sure to enjoy our Megillot for years to come.

It's good to be the king. It's better to be a child.

As soon as we began putting up the "palace" in our room and hung the Purim pictures and put out the books and the masks, the children were hooked. They love everything about this holiday and its story. A king, a queen, the "mean guy" [Haman], masks, scepters, and so on .

I couldn't help but contrast this to how we adults view the story. We know that the king had to worry about being overthrown, Vashti came to a bad end, Esther was afraid for her life, Mordechai and the Jews were terrified. It's a joyous time for us because it ended well, but we can see the darker side of the story. To the children it's all joy and fun. And that's wonderful.

Today we had a fun and interesting time following up with our hypotheses on how to make grape juice. We tried out all the suggestions given forward by the children. We squeezed, "smooshed", cut, blended,added a little sugar, and stepped on them! Hopefully next week or so the children won't be as reticent as they were today to "stamp on the grapes!" Promise we didn't taste the juice from Morah Carla's foot!

Snow Globes

We decided to make snow globes! Why? Because we have been talking about how the weather has been changing and we wear jackets to school. We even found ice on our playground a few times. Then we spoke about snow and read a few books about it. So we decided to get to work on our snow globes:

We painted!

We sprinkled glitter into our bottles!

Finally, we used our strong muscles and fingers to squeeze baby oil into the jars!

Voila! Our finished products! Hope you enjoy them for a long time!

One Thing Leads to Another, and Before You Know It . . .

The buzz today was all about the Siddur. First, it was Rabbi Eytan Kenter of Congregation B'nai Torah speaking about the Siddur at Coffee and Covenant this morning. The buzz continued with the fantaboulous Siddur Presentation. (Yes, I know I'm making up my own vocabulary--but what other word can you use to describe such a wonderful program?)

Next, it was our classroom Tefillah. We have a colorful prayer chart, all in Hebrew, and two small Siddurim, also all in Hebrew. Look what happens (below) when one Gan child opened up the small Siddur. Yes, he spontaneously began to compare the words in the book with those on the chart! And, he discovered, they are the very same! The process of getting ready to receive one's own personal Siddur is already underway. Fantaboulous!

Grilled Cheese is O.K., But it's Not ____________.

I don't know how many parents are aware of the interesting snacks we sometimes have in the ECD. Yesterday, we served the children wild rice crisps, babaghanoush and lox. Your eyes are not playing tricks on you, this is what we served. Of course, not all the children would try the babaghanoush or the lox, but more did than you would think, and they all liked the crisps.

Today, we had grilled cheese. The children liked it, but Noam asked if we had lox and Heather wanted to know if there was any babaghanoush.

We're so proud of our little gourmands.

Bittersweet Carrots

Today Tia had tears in her eyes when she told me the carrots were all gone.

The harvest, I suppose, can be bittersweet. It is like saying goodbye to something that was once so meaningful.

(Ella shows the fruits of our gardening)

Who blooms pink?

Side-by-side comparisons of the first signs of spring: in Atlanta (decorative plum tree across the street from GHA) and in Israel (almond tree). Images were projected on the wall and children interpreted them.

Are you surprised that Atlanta's blooms are more pink?