FROM MISS DEANA
Happy Tu B’shvat! The children had so much fun singing and dancing around our playground trees. On Monday the children decorated a birthday crown with markers and tree stickers. During snack time the children tasted olives, figs, and raisins. The children did great tasting all of them, however the raisins were the class favorite. This week we learned the letter “Qq”. Our Sign Language words are: quit, quick and queen.
The Brocha we learned this week was Haadama (food from the ground). On Thursday the children got a chance to taste all sorts of vegetables. We had celery, red, yellow, orange, and green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, and melon. The class favorites were melon, and cucumbers. Now that we have learned several brochots we were able to sort more of our play food. Sorting our play food is a great visual for the children to see and compare the food and figure out which column it went in.
I brought out a few new manipulatives this week: geoboards, and gears. Geoboards are excellent educational tools for children because they blend tactile, open-ended play with foundational STEM learning. They strengthen fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination through the manipulation of rubber bands, while visually teaching geometric concepts like shapes, symmetry, area, and perimeter.
Geoboards are great at promoting problem-solving and creativity, allowing children to build, experiment, and learn through exploration. Playing with gears fosters essential STEM skills, fine motor development, and critical thinking through hands-on, Cause-and-effect exploration. It promotes spatial awareness, introduces basic mechanical engineering concepts like torque and gear ratios, and encourages collaborative, creative problem-solving. There’s so much learning happening just by playing with geoboards, and gears. Next up, Purim!
I hope you have a great Shabbos,
FROM MORAH RAIZEL
We had such a lovely Tu B’Shvat celebration at school on Monday. The children made special Tu B’Shvat hats and joined us in singing songs in honor of the trees.
The Parsha of the week is Yisro, Yisro, Yisro, The Parsha of the week is Yisro, That is the Parsha of the week.
This week, we learned all about Yisro, Moshe’s father-in-law, who decided to join the Jewish people based on the miracles that he heard about. Yisro brought Moshe’s wife and children and blessed Hashem. Yisro noticed that Moshe would sit from morning until evening, answering the various questions of the Jewish people. Yisro suggested that Moshe appoint people to help him so questions could be answered efficiently. And that is exactly what Moshe did.
We also read about the giving of the Torah! We learned about the special mountain, Har Sinai, and the unity that occurred as the Jews gathered to receive the Torah. We learned a song about the Ten Commandments. Here it is!
1, Hashem, that’s all there is,
So 2, make no images.
And 3, be careful with Hashem’s name,
4, keep my Shabbat flame.
5, respect your mom and dad.
6, don’t kill, that would be bad.
7, to your spouse, stay always true,
8, don’t steal, it’s not for you.
9, when you testify, don’t tell a lie.
10, what you have is best, so don’t go after someone else’s share.
After singing the song, we discussed what each commandment means.
Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos!
