Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Little Torah
Little Torah
Let me hold you tight
Teach me
Teach me
All your mitzvos 
so I can do them right
Morah Katie: What is a mtizvah the Torah has taught you?
Josiah: The Torah teaches us about the Torah.
Kian: It teaches us to do nice things.
Morah Katie: What type of nice things does it teach?
Noah: It tells us about all the holidays.
Dena: To do nice things for others like help.
Efraim: Sing songs of Torah.
Gracie: To give to people.
Tori: It teaches us to share with friends.
 

The mitzvos the children spoke about occur each day, in small and big gestures of kindness and friendship.
They happen when children share one toy at a table;
and when an older friend comes to visit and play.

We are very excited to celebrate two new 5 year olds!!!  Congratulations Kian and Noah!


Friday, December 14, 2012

This week we:
bundled up to enjoy the winter weather;

made Chanukah crafts to enjoy with our families;
 
created Chanukah fun in the classroom;

and watched with anticipation and awe each day as Rabbi lit our classroom menorah.
 
A Chanukah conversation:
Dena: Tori and I get to light the candles for our menorah.
Gracie: We put our menorah on the big table. We have 3!! menorahs.
Josiah: We have 2 menorah's, one that has curls and curves on it and one that doesn't.
Anton: We have a menorah.  We light it every night.
Tori:  We get to pick the candles we put in our menorah too.
Noah: We light the candles each night and we open presents.
Isaac: We put candles up each night, it lights up the sky.
Dena: We are going to take a picture of all our menorah's with all our candles on the last night. It is going to be so bright.
Noam: We light candles, the candles are in the menorah. 
 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Morah Katie: Let's pretend I am from a different place and I don't know anything about the holiday of Chanukah.  What should I know? 
Noah: Well it happened a long time ago.
Dena: They would light the menorah in the Holy Temple.
Morah Katie: Who would light the menorah?
Tori: The Kohens and Judah Maccabee did.
Morah Katie: How did they light the menorah.
Dena: With Oil.
Morah Katie: Where did the oil come from.
Tori: They get the olives from trees and smash them and the oil would rise to the top.
Noah: The Syrian Greeks wrecked the temple.
Tori: They got the oil and spilt it.
Noah: The Greeks said don't celebrate and only make bad choices.
Morah Katie: What bad choices did they say to make?
Kian: Don't thank Hashem in the morning.
Gracie: Don't sing the Torah songs.
Morah Katie: That sounds pretty bad, what happened?
Isaac: They chased they bad guys and played dreidels.
Morah Katie: Who chased the bad guys away?
Tori: The Maccabees.
Gracie: The Maccabees made it so we could make good choices.
Tori: They were so brave they chased the Greeks away.
The young  Maccabees at The Gan played a good trick on the Greek solider who was bugging them.
After these smart brave young kids tricked the Greek solider, they chased her away.  
When they returned to the "temple" they had to search for the oil.
We found it!
 We had a lot of fun building a block Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple).
We enjoyed playing dreidels in our "cave".
 
We have been preparing for our holiday celebration!