A Thankful Week

A look at this week:

Two days in the week and what did we do? We talked about what we are thankful for! Although this is always a discussion during our davening time, this week we made Thankful Me’s and tried to write one of the things we are each thankful for! It ranged from dolls and balls to parents! Our Thankful Me’s are displayed on a bulletin board on the way into the classroom! We also worked on a special project and our letter knowledge!

And to make our week even more sepcial, we filled our tzedakah box this week. On Monday, Morah Tzivie brought in a plastic bag and we emptied our tzedakah box into the bag. Then when Rabbi came into the building, the children gave it to him so he could give it to someone who needs it!

Conversations from the week:

Although I have no specific quotes this week, I really enjoyed listening to the children during snack time on Monday. They were eating pretzels and they all decided to find letters in the parts of the pretzels they had left after they took a bite! It was so exciting to hear the numerous letters that they made!

A look at next week:

Next week we are starting our study on Chanukah! This is going to last for three weeks. We will be starting with this theme with talking about oil. We will be going on an oil hunt, doing latke math and latke letter matches. There is lots of Chanukah fun to come!

All Aboard!

A look at this week:

Hear the whistle blow; every come aboard! The train has departed from the Gan! This week we focused on trains and boats. We talked a little about direction (N, W, S, and E) as we made compass with arrows the children can move. And we spent time working on our passports as we took another trip around the classroom aboard trains and boats! In writing this week the children made their own train tracks and then copied words onto their tracks. In math the children took the cars from the number train and had to put them in order from 1-10. Then we parked our train on top of our word tracks on the wall! Some of the children enjoyed making a train out of boxes as well as making trains out of popsicle sticks, paper and stickers! And although the home living and block areas were open to play in with a train theme, no one chose to go in there. However, some children did decide to play with the gears to see how gears affect each other when putting them together to make things (such as trains) move! To finish off the enjoyment of our train trip, we not only got to put together a model train but we also made our own trains out of cucumbers, tea biscuits and carrots!

After debarking from the train, we then set sail on a boat! We started this part of our theme by making celery boats with peanut butter and paper sails and then we enjoyed eating them! We attempted to make boats out of soap, which we then learned that they would sink in a container of water! We also had the chance to graph items by finding out if the floated in water or if they sunk.

Conversations from the week:

Every morning I have been putting out different activities for the children to play with. This gives them a little bit of time first thing in the morning to enjoy some of the manipulatives found in the classroom. We have added to this a question of the day in which the children try to read the question and then sign in under what they think the answer is. This helps them work on writing their names, sound recognition, letter recognition, beginning reading skills and actual reading! After they sign in then they work on their journals for a little. Normally they are given a topic for their journals, but if they write off topic, that is fine too! And then, if there is still time before snack, they get to enjoy the other toys that have been put out.

One day this week (Wednesday) I put out the bristle blocks and pattern blocks. As each child finished their journal, they picked either activity to do. Here is a short conversation that took place over the bristle blocks!

Miriam: Let’s make a boat truck. Ok?

Avery: No. I want to make a train track.

Miriam: Well, I’m not making a train track.

Avery: I am.

When other children heard this conversation they quickly came over to help with the train track (which did turn into a boat of some sort at the end). It was just nice to hear the children actually taking what they are learning throughout the day and putting into their own play!

A look at next week:

Next week is a short week with the Thanksgiving break Wednesday through Friday. However, we still have some fun planned for the children! While we talk to the children about being thankful every day, we are going to spend these two days doing some Thankful activities. The children are going to help make a thankful page in writing; we are going to do a thankful count in math and we will also be working on a very special surprise that we started this week!

Train snack

Compass play and make

Box train

Sink or float?

Playing with gears

Working on the number train

Last week's Shabbat Abba

Last week's Shabbat Party!

In to the air we go!

A look at this week:

We traveled on land and now we move to the air. Planes and spaceships were the topic of conversation this week. We spent time talking about outer space as well. We started the week by seeing a special box with glow-in-the-dark stars in it for the children to enjoy! Then we made telescopes to see the stars. We also spent time counting stars in math by placing as many as we wanted on a piece of paper and then counting how many we put! We made our own airplane tickets by copying words that may be found on a real ticket. The children made airplanes and spaceships out of paper, popsicle sticks and other supplies in the classroom. They were able to build a spaceship in the blocks or pretend to go on an airplane ride in home living. We also worked in our passports and for each of the activities that the children completed, they got a stamp in their passport and then tried to write or draw about the activity as well! This week was a shorter week with Wednesday being a day off; however, the children really seemed to enjoy the activities. It was really nice to hear one or two of them comment that they wanted to get another stamp in their passports! Some of the children also got the chance to experience how astronauts may drink when they are in space by putting orange juice in plastic bags and using a straw to drink it!

Conversations from the week:

I explained to the children that I was going to need them to sit down on their letter in the circle time room, stay seated and just look. I also let them know I was closing the door and turning the light off for a moment so they could experience the mysterious box that arrived in the room. Everyone did such a nice job!

Morah Amanda: What are we learning about this week?

Mussie: Sky and…

Lizzy: Airplanes and rockets

Mussie: Space.

Morah Amanda: We are now going to turn the light out and everyone needs to stay sitting to see!

Mussie: Stars!

Everyone: Stars!

You could hear the excitement in the children’s voices as they were looking into the black painted box with the glow-in-the-dark stickers inside!

I turned the light back on and was begged to show them again. So we had one more look and then we talked about the box. I explained that they would have the chance to look at it in the rainforest room if they wanted and we discussed how to treat the box.

Drinking like an Astronaut

Morah Amanda: If you were an astronaut in a space ship, you would not do things the same as we do on Earth. You would not be able to just keep your feet on the ground, instead you would be able to float in the air. Have you ever jumped on a trampoline?

Mussie: I jumped on my friends trampoline.

Morah Amanda: On your friend’s? When you were in the air did you feel like you were going to fall right back down or were you in the air for a little bit?

Mussie: Up in the air for a little bit.

Morah Amanda: So when you are an astronaut in a space ship they have to be careful since they can stay in the air. They even eat special foods and do special things to make it easier to eat or drink. Do you know what would happen if you opened the orange juice in space?

Levi: What?

Morah Amanda: It would go up into the air. It won’t stay in the container. They have to drink it a special way. So we are going to try something. Are you ready to drink like an astronaut. We are going to pour the orange juice into the bag.

Class: All of class was laughing

Levi: Into a Ziploc bag!

Morah Amanda: I am going to pour it into three Ziploc bags because how many kids do we have today?

Class: Three.

Morah Amanda: I am going to zip them up. Now look. Is this open? Can orange juice come out of this?

Class: Yeah.

Morah Amanda: But what about this could juice come out of this when it is zipped?

Class: No

Morah Amanda: Ok if we used the regular container, what would happen?

Mussie: It would spill.

Morah Amanda: It wouldn’t spill but it would come out.

Mussie: Why?

Morah Amanda: Because we have gravity on Earth that keeps us down, on the planet. If we didn’t have gravity then we would float on the air. So, what we are going to do is open the bag just a little bit and put the straw in. If they had the open containers they would have to catch the juice when it goes up into the air, and they would need to figure out a way to drink it!

The children all started laughing when they were drinking their juice. They really enjoyed this experience.

A look at next week:

Since we have already discussed automobiles and just finished with planes and spaceships we are going to start traveling by trains and boats. Next week we will be writing words that have to do with trains, putting train cars in numeric order, talking about triangles as we make sail boats, and seeing which items will sink or float.

Drinking like an astronaut.

Painting the large, class telescope


Making a paper airplane

Working on personal telescopes

Writing airplane tickets

Doing star math

Cars, Trucks and Busses...the first part of travel

A look at this week:
It has wheels, four to be exact. What could it be? This was a big discussion this week in class as we started talking about transportation. One of the favorite activities this week was working with me on wheel counting where the children took pictures of bikes, cars, busses and trucks, counted the wheels and then matched the number they came up with to the number cards that were on the floor. The other top choice of activities was the car making project where the children were able to create cars, busses and trucks out of art materials. These cars are being added to our newly made Alphabet Highway! The letters will be coming soon! In addition to these two activities we have started getting ready for our pretend travel by making passports where the children had the chance to get their passport picture taken, write their first names, last names, birthdates and home town. Over the next week or two the children will be putting stamps in their passports when they complete different activities. They also will be encouraged to write about the activity or dictate something to me. We also got to paint with cars, making car tracks on paper. The children built ramps out of the blocks and sent cars down the ramps to see which cars went further and faster and which ramps worked better. Some of the children enjoyed looking at maps and doing the map puzzles while others enjoyed playing with cars on the track lid of the sand table. It was also fun to listen to how the children played together during exploration time with I took out some different cars. The final activity for the week was the chance to make their very own license plate! I brought in a license plate from Florida. We looked out the window at the Oregon and Washington license plates that were in the parking lot and then the children were able to design their own license plate and even stamp letters onto it!


Conversations from the week:
While working with some children on their numbers this week, I had the chance to overhear a conversation that was going on when children were looking at the maps that were in the room. It was a short conversation, but it was enjoyable to hear that some of the children were understanding exactly what the map work was all about!

Miriam was holding a map in her hand.
Miriam: Mussie, we need to do to California.
Mussie (doing a different activity): No.
Miriam: Let’s just pretend.
Miriam continues to look at the map for another minute or so.
Miriam: Now, where should we go?

A look at next week:
We will be continuing our look at different transportation. Next week we are going to take it to the air as we discuss airports and space travel. The children will have the chance to help build a space ship, write about what they see on their trip to outer space and talk about the words behind, above, over and under.

Which car will go faster?

Pompoms, popsicle sticks, stickers, glue, paper, scissors. Now to put it all together to make a car!

Just finishing the car tracks.

Working with the maps.

Counting wheels

Working on a passport

Driving cars!

Using our Senses to get through the Rainforest

A look at this week:

What an amazing week, using our five senses to make it through our trip to the rainforest! First we found out how large some of the animals in the rainforest could be by making a paper anaconda. We learned that anacondas can be 30 feet long and that a 30 foot long snake would go from our art shelf, down the wall, around the office door and to the drying rack! And, not only that but if all the children were to lay down on the floor next to an anaconda, the anaconda would be longer than the entire class (head to foot)! Now our anaconda is another fixture in our room. After working with our class snake, we moved on to using our senses. The children really enjoyed using the binoculars to “see” in the rainforest. It was funny to watch some children try to find snakes, frogs and lizards in our coffee beans this week as at first, they were a little afraid to touch the beans. They said “we don’t want to get bit.” But that fear came to an end rather quickly as they realized the animals were not real! While using our sense of touch with the coffee beans, we also used our sense of hearing in the rainforest as not only did we hear true rainforest sounds but we made rain sticks to simulate the sound of the rain in the rainforest. We used our sense of smell as we smelled different scents that may be found in the rainforest and then matched the smell to cards with the words and pictures of those items. And we used our sense of taste by having avocado and pretzels for snack one day! In the meantime, we also spent some time working with letters. Although the children really enjoyed all the sense activities, I really enjoyed watching them work with their letters and seeing the excitement they displayed when realizing they learned the name of another letter! We took the magnetic letters and spelled out “rainforest” and then the children used those letters to match word cards that had other words that could be made with the same letters. Some children sounded out the words and ended up reading the words to me; some children worked on telling me the names of the letters each time they moved one; some children just matched the words; and some children just enjoyed manipulating the letters, even if they didn’t make the other words out of them. We also made paper plate frogs this week, which have been added to our rainforest and our bulletin board display.

Conversations from the week:

Since we had a special snack this week, I thought the conversation about the snack would be the best one to share!

Morah Amanda: (Holding up an avocado) What is this?

Class: Avocado

Morah Amanda: Where do you think an avocado grows?

Miriam: In a tree!

Morah Amanda: In a tree; where is a place we may be able to see an avocado growing in a tree?

Levi: Near your house

Morah Amanda: They normally grow somewhere where it is somewhat warm.

Mussie: In a forest.

Morah Amanda: What type?

Mussie: A rainforest

Morah Amanda: Possibly in the rainforest. Now let’s look at this. First of all, it is sometimes green and then starts turning brown. Do we eat this part?

Mussie: No.

Morah Amanda: No, this is the peel. We are going to cut into it.

Noah: I see the seeds.

Morah Amanda: You see the seeds? How many seeds do you think are in an avocado?

Mussie: There is one giant one.

Morah Amanda: There is one big seed.

Mussie: What if we had one big seed to make lots of avocados?

Jayden: We can touch it.

Morah Amanda: No, we aren’t going to touch it right now. It is covered in avocado. I am going to put a little bit of avocado on everybody’s plates. So that you can mash it up with your spoon.

Jayden: Yucky avocado. Yucky.

Miriam: I want some!

Morah Amanda: You can mix it up with your spoon.

Mussie: You can mash it! Jayden doesn’t want any.

Morah Amanda: That’s fine if Jayden doesn’t want any.

Mussie: (looking at a little brown part of avocado) We can’t use it when it’s dirty.

Noah: It’s dirty.

Morah Amanda: It’s fine. It is alright to eat.

Jayden: Yuck!

Morah Amanda: Ok, you can mash it up with your spoon. What do you think avocados are used to make?

Mussie: You can make a sandwich with it.

Morah Amanda: You can make a sandwich with it…

Levi: I am mashing it up!

Morah Amanda: You’re mashing it up? What else could you make with avocado?

After a little time: Avocado is used to make guacamole. You can mix it with lemon juice.

Miriam: I like avocados. Yum!

Levi: I don’t like avocados.

Morah Amanda: This is a chance to taste the rainforest by eating something we could get from a rainforest. I will give you some pretzels to eat with it. Sometimes we mix it with different foods to make it taste a little different.

Noah: Snack!

Morah Amanda: Look at how well Avery is smashing her’s!

Lizzie: I’m smashing mine!

Morah Amanda: You are doing a good job.

Lizzie: What do you do with the pretzels?

Morah Amanda: You can dip it into the smashed up avocado to help you eat it!

Jayden: Not me. I am not going to do that!

Miriam: I tried it! It’s tasty!

Morah Amanda: Let’s say the bracha. Ready?

Class says brachas together.

Morah Amanda: How does the avocado taste?

Mussie: Not so good.

Morah Amanda: Not so good? Oh, Avery is eating it with her spoon. Is it good Avery? (she nods) Avery likes it! How does it taste?

Lizzy: Yummy.

Morah Amanda: Does it taste yummy Lizzy?

Josh: I am going to try the pretzels.

Morah Amanda: Josh do you like the avocado?

Josh: No I just like the pretzels.

Morah Amanda: You just like the pretzels? Would you like to pass around the seed and feel it? Everyone can touch it. Is it heavy or is it light?

Avery: It’s not very heavy.

Morah Amanda: So, who likes the avocado?

Mussie, Levi, Avery, Miriam, Jayden: Me!

Morah Amanda: Mussie does, Levi does, Avery and Miriam do. Oh, Jayden said he likes the avocado.

Josh: I want some avocado.

Morah Amanda: You liked it?

Josh: Yes.

Morah Amanda (talking about the seed): Is it bumpy or is it smooth?

Jayden: Smooth.

Morah Amanda: Ok…we are going to see…we are going to put this on top of a cup of water and we will leave the water alone. And we will see if we can grow some roots on it.

Noah: Hey, it’s a sun!

Morah Amanda: It does look like a sun, doesn’t it?

A look at next week:

Next week we are going to start talking about transportation. As we focus this week on automobiles we are also going to look at maps, make our own passports, count wheels on different types of automobiles and make our own cars!

Smelling the rainforest scents

Raining with rainsticks in our rainforest

Avocado snack time

Rainforest word play

Using binoculars in the rainforest

What animals can you find?

The anaconda is longer than our entire class laying down!

Our Anaconda that goes around the office door

Our world wall

The rainforest

Entering the rainforest

A look at this week:
When you walk into The Gan, the classroom may look normal. But take a few steps further inside, enter the library and you end up not only in a room where you can find books, where we read stories, and where the children can relax a little, but you also enter a rainforest! With this week’s main focus being the rainforest, we have been talking about the animals we can find in one. We even made our own snakes to put in our rainforest! For writing this week we made a class book that talks about what we see in the rainforest. This book will be continued into next week as well. For math the children focused on weighing coffee beans in our scale and also using different measuring cups to play with the beans. And while they were doing this, we also made the room smell terrific! In the block area the children used the blocks to build a rainforest. And for science we took water droppers and put a little water onto cotton balls to make rainclouds. Then the children had the opportunity to squeeze the rain out of their clouds! The children also made letters this week with a few different items. We used the coffee beans to make letters and we also made playdough snakes into letters. And when they were not busy using the playdough to make letters they were creating other rainforest animals. To bring the rainforest that much closer to the classroom we also had a special rainforest item snack by eating pineapple and coconut. Although all the children wanted the pineapple, a few did not want the coconut. However, after their friends started eating the coconut, everyone decided to try some!

Conversations from the week:
There were a few different child led conversations about the rainforest library this week. Here are a couple of them!

Upon entering the library rainforest for the first time:
Levi: Why do you have a frog like that?
Mussie: Where’s my snake?
Levi: Where’s mine?
Morah Amanda: Look for it.
Levi: Mine’s there! Mine’s in the middle.
Mussie: And mine is here, near the window.
I can touch both monkey climbing the tree.
Levi: I can touch this one.
Mussie: Why is there only one (looking at the jaguar)? Because there is only
One in the book?

Another time the lights had not been turned on in the library yet. Mussie noticed an exclaimed: It’s dark in the rainforest!

A look at next week:
The rainforest is still our main theme next week. We are going to enjoy more activities with the coffee beans including an animal find. We will be working on spelling out words using the letters in ""rainforest and also seeing how long an anaconda snake is and how far down it’s body we can jump.


Working on a book page

Eating pineapple and coconut

Making letters our of coffee beans

Making rainclouds

Making playdough rainforest animals

Catching the world

Weighing coffee beans

Looking through our class made binoculars

Shabbat Abba from last week

Shabbat Emma from last week

The World is Growing All Around Us

A look at this week:
This week started with clouds, both inside and out, and will end with people on the wall and celebrating Shabbat. We have started our look at the world! And what goes better with talking about the world than talking about weather, especially when the weather is making a change outside? On Monday we painted our world for our mitzvah notes. And by Tuesday we were able to start putting our mitzvah notes up around the world. In the meantime, we also started to develop a mural wall about the world. The children created clouds on Monday. Tuesday we added a tree, grass, flowers and water. On Wednesday we added the sun, moon and stars. On Thursday we added some fish and birds and on Friday we will add people! It has been enjoyable to watch this wall develop over the week and to just hear the pleasure the children get from seeing the new parts added each day! While working on this we also made a class book. We talked a little about the days of the week and so we made a book where the children had to fill in the blanks to “Today is ________. _________ _________.” It was interesting to talk about what we could put for each day. Each child was able to make one page of the book. They chose the day they wanted to do and what activity they wanted for that page. Then they copied the words onto their paper. One of the most interesting parts of working with children on book pages like this is seeing how they write on their own and how they write with guidance and directions from me. While working on math, we had the chance to play with dice and talk about numbers as we matched cut out worlds to the numbers on a die and then wrote that number on a paper. The children are learning poems about how to make their numbers, and this is already proving useful in the number writing process! We also played in the sand table this week! Although the block area and the home living area were open to either build part of the world or pretend to travel, the children were really enthralled with the other world activities that we had available. We also met Wally, our weather dog. The children have already started dressing him for the weather and we are also graphing the weather, talking about what the weather was yesterday and today and predicting tomorrow’s weather.

Conversations from the week:
It was so nice that a few of our friends were concerned when some of the children were out sick this week. It was nice to hear the children ask if the others were ok and they were also telling me how much they missed their sick friends.

While at lunch this week, I overheard a very short conversation that was fun.

Jayden: She has candy.
Josh: Candy is really yummy!
Avery (while eating a piece of chocolate after finishing part of her lunch): Candy is not good for you. It is bad for your teeth!

I just had to laugh when I heard this conversation, especially as I looked at Avery with the chocolate all around her mouth and a big smile as she explained how candy was bad for you.

A look at next week:
While we continue to work on the world, we are going to move to a specific part of the world and start talking about the rainforest. You may notice a small change in one of the extra rooms we use as the environment in that room will be altered due to the theme. As we make this theme come alive in the classroom, I would also like ask that if anyone has any empty paper towel rolls, can you please send them in. We would like to use these to make rainmakers in the next two weeks. We would really appreciate it! Thank you!


Making a bird

Painting the tree trunk

Putting the world together

Playing in the sand

Making the sun, moon and stars

Working on his book page

Putting the leaves together for the tree