Graphing Apples

In our math unit we are learning about graphing. In honor of Rosh Hashanah, Morah brought in red and green apples to see which kindergarten likes best. We blind folded each child as they guessed using their taste buds which color apple was in their mouth and which taste they liked the best. After, we graphed the results. The children were shocked to realize that their taste buds liked the opposite apple they thought they would like best. 

Living vs. Non Living Scavenger Hunt

In science, Kindergarten is learning what makes something living and non living. Living things need air, food, water and sunlight. Since we are scientists, we took our exploration outdoors and went on a scavenger hunt. Each child received a clip board with a worksheet. On one side they were to draw the living things they saw and on the other side, the non living. They were so creative!

A Good Writer Adds Details to Their Pictures

In our writing units, we learn "Good Writer" rules. We have learned a good writer starts at the left side of the page when writing. We also learned that a good writer must add details to their pictures. Morah began the lesson by drawing a picture of a plain face with eyes, nose and mouth. The more details added, the easier it was for the children to guess which student Morah was drawing. We then went back to our tables and made self portraits. When finished, we met back at the carpet to look at the drawings and based on the details, the children had to guess which friend it was from the class. These self portraits are now hanging on our Writer's Wall. 

Handwriting Without Tears

In Kindergarten we use Handwriting Without Tears for our writing program. Morah will demonstrate at the board how to form a letter. We will "air write it" and then use our fun, interactive HWT CD to dance and form letters. We are currently learning what are called frog jump letters. This means when you start to form a letter you start and the top, make a big line straight down then jump back to the top where you started to form the rest of the letter. We have done letters E, F and D. Below you will see workbook centers, chalk boards, wooden pieces and writing boxes.
Wooden pieces are used to form the letter. Then we take out finger and trace the letter the correct way we learned how to write it. 

Below the children are using their workbooks to review what we learned. It's a great way for Morah to make sure they form their letters correctly. 

The children use chalk boards to form letters with chalk, form it again by using a wet sponge to erase the chalk letter then finally a dry towel to trace the letter a third time. It's a great review method. 

Kindergarten Learns the Alef-Beis

This week we started learning the Hebrew alphabet, the aleph-beis!! We learnt a special song to sing that includes all the letters and is a lot of fun to sing!

There were many different activities that we did to learn the two first letters, such as:

 Making letters out of lego:

Making letters out of cubes:

Creating our own letters with colored papers.

 

Tracing letters in sugar and flour:

We played an Alef Beis game that helped us differentiate between the alef and the beis, seeing which letter was going to be the winner with our super special alef beis dice!

 

Some more alef beis activities and games to practice our new Hebrew vowel, kamatz!

We also practiced our letter by making them out of pretzels!

It was so much fun trying to make our bodies shaped like the new letter we learnt, the letter veis. We really had to be able to move our arms and legs all around to make the right shape.

We are also super busy preparing for the upcoming Jewish Holiday of Rosh Hashana!!

Morah brought in a real shofar for us to see and touch. It was so interesting to think that the shofar came from a real animal's horn!

We practiced the three different types of sounds that a shofar makes, with different fun activities and sounds in circle time. 

We then started working on our very own shofar mobiles that we will be bringing home in time for Rosh Hashana. 

Making our shofars:

We also made our own rams to show where the shofar comes from, which is from the horn of  a ram! It was a lot of fun being able to make the ram's body all fuzzy.

We are so excited to bring our honey "bee" dishes home so that we can dip our apples in honey on Rosh Hashana. We dip the apple in honey as a way of asking G-d to give us a sweet new year! We also made a special apple shaped mat for all of the special foods/ fruits we eat on Rosh Hashana. These special foods include pomegranates, the apple and honey, round shaped challah and the head of a fish. 

We had a great time at shabbos party this week!! Not only was it  SHABBOS PARTY, but it was also the "birthday of the world." It was the anniversary of the first day of creation. We sang happy birthday to the world and even opened up a present that had a globe inside:)

We always enjoy listening to the parsha story, when Morah uses her puppets, props or pictures!!


We always love outdoor play and fun with friends:)

Stay tuned for more... Have a great week and Shana Tova!