Thursday, January 7, 2010

Winter Break is over and we are back!

A look at this week:
We jumped right into learning when we returned from winter break! This week we started by pretending to get on an airplane and taking a trip to Israel. In home living we dressed up and got ready for our trip. Then once we arrived in Israel we visited many places. First we exchanged our money (by doing coin rubbings for math). Then, with the book about Sammy Spider going to Israel as our guide, we followed his trip and "visited" different places in Israel. Please read our discussion below to see exactly how the activities fit into our trip as we discussed this after having a few days of doing the different activities. In art we sponge painted bricks onto paper in the block area we built the Western Wall. For writing this week we wrote letters to Hashem and then added them to our wall. We also filled in the blank to "I am going on a trip to Israel. And in my suitcase I packed ________." The children rolled a letter die to get a letter and had to come up with an item to pack that started with that letter. In science we did a special experiement with water and salt. And we even had a chance to make and try humus!
Oh...we also took the chance with the new year starting to measure everyone again so we can see how many apples tall and inches tall each child measures at as well as how many apples and inches each child grew so far this school year!

Talking about the week (in review):
Morah Amanda: Let's talk about our wall again. Tell me what Sammy Spider felt when he went to visit the Western Wall.
Lizzy: The paper.
Morah Amanda: He didn't feel the paper. What did he feel first?
Lizzy: The bricks.

Morah Amanda: He felt the bricks first. And the bricks were...?

Lizzy: Hard
Morah Amanda: They were hard and...?

Mussie: Rough!

Morah Amanda: And then he was crawling around inbetween the bricks and he felt what?

Mussie: Paper?

Morah Amanda: Yes, there was paper but he doesn't talk about the paper. He found some?
Lizzy: Leaves!

Morah Amanda: He found some leaves and some?
Mussie: Grass.
Noah: Trees.

Morah Amanda: Not trees, they don't grow out of a wall. How about some weeds? This wall is so old that plants are growing through it? How do these all feel?

Mussie: Soft!

Morah Amanda: Now, in the story Sammy Spider and Josh and his family went to a kibbutz. Does anyone remember what a kibbutz is?

Levi: (looking at page in book) A big giant watermelon!

Morah Amanda: There is a big giant watermelon. Does anyone remember what a kibbutz is? A kibbutz is a place where many families live together and work on the land. And Josh's family decided to eat together. What did Sammy Spider get to taste?
Mussie: pickles.
Morah Amanda: And how did the pickles taste to him?

Class: sour
Morah Amanda: Sour. That is one of our other sense, taste. What else did he have?
Mussie: Challah

Morah Amanda: Not Challah but Halvah. It is a dessert, how do you think it would taste?

Avery: Good!

Mussie: Yummy. Sweet!

Morah Amanda: What else did he have?

Mussie: Olives.

Morah Amanda: He had olives. How did they taste?

Noah: Sour

Morah Amanda: Not sour

Mussie: Sweet.

Morah Amanda: Not sweet

Miriam: Good!

Mussie: Salty!

Morah Amanda: Salty! Good job Mussie. And he ate two other things and talked about how they tasted. He ate falafel and hummus. And how did they taste?

Avery: I don't know how hummus tastes.

Mussie: Spicy.

Morah Amanda: Right Mussie, they tasted spicy. You know what Avery? You are going to be able to taste hummus because we are going to make our very own hummus.
Noah: Hummus?

Morah Amanda: So in just a few more minutes we are going to have Morah Tzivie help us make some hummus. Why do you think we are going to make hummus?

Lizzy: Because we like hummus.

Avery: I don't like hummus.

Morah Amanda: How do you know if you like it if you haven't had it?

Lizzy: We like it because it is yummy, sweet and sour.

Morah Amanda: That is an intersting mixture of tastes.

Mussie: Cause Sammy spider ate it in Israel.

Morah Amanda: Ok. What have we been doing this week?

Mussie: We took a trip to Israel.

Morah Amanda: We took a trip to Israel. And did we visit the Dead Sea?

Class: Yes.

Morah Amanda: And how did we visit the Dead Sea?

Noah: Salt!

Morah Amanda: And what did we do with the salt?

Class: We put it in the water.

Morah Amanda: We put the salt in the water and what did we try to see? If things would what?

Mussie: Float!

Morah Amanda: If things would float on the salty water! And did we visit the Kotel?

Mussie: Yes!

Morah Amanda: How? What did we do?

Class: With paint. And sponges.
Morah Amanda: So we visited the Kotel, by making our own wall. We visited a kibbutz by working together to make hummus and we visisted the Dead Sea by adding salt to water and seeing if we could make items float!
Looking at next week:
Next week we are going to spend the week talking about Shabbat. We will be making special Shabbat items and doing some math sorting! If you have any shoe boxes at home that we could use to put our special art projects in, we would love to decorate them and use them as special Shabbat Boxes. Please send them in Monday if you have any! Thank you!
We always enjoy having family participation in activities. If you would like to take a moment to write something on a piece of paper and add it to our own special wall I am sure the children would love to share this special display with all of you! Please feel free to participate in our new classroom display!
All dressed and ready for our trip!
Making coin rubbings
Building (or painting) our wall
Adding grass and weeds
Writing our own words to Hashem
Adding our letters to the wall
Our wall
The first ingredient in Humus: Garbonzo Beans
Adding the final ingredient before blending it all together

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