Yom Kippur and Sukkot

Hello family and friends!

The past two weeks have been spent learning about Yom Kippur and Sukkot. We have learned so much about these Jewish holidays and what they represent. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these holidays, I'll give a quick explanation of what each represents and how we have been studying them.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. During this time of the year we spend time in self-reflection of how we can improve ourselves and also in forgiveness of those we have wronged. In the classroom we focused on our feelings, and how they affect others, as well as how we can be kind to those around us. We started our study of Yom Kippur by reading the story of Jonah. From this story we learned that even when we do something wrong, we can change our ways and be forgiven. We felt like this was a story that could be applied to our classroom throughout the rest of the year. We learned that there will always be times when we wrong our parents, friends, and teachers, but the beauty of this story is that we can also be forgiven. We've been putting this into practice this week by talking through our differences with friends we've hurt and talking about appropriate ways to ask for forgiveness. After the reading of our story, we let this overflow into our writing workshop time. It was a great way for the kids to make connections to the story and extend their learning.

We have also spent a lot of time talking about being kind to one another. One way of showing kindness is the giving of tzedakah. This is when we give to those in need. Each child made their own tzedakah box last week and put their first penny inside it. We have encouraged them to continue to fill their box and give to others. As we've talked about being kind, we read "The Kindness Quilt" by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. We had originally thought about making kindness posters but after reading the story, the kids decided they would rather make a kindness quilt like the one in our story. We took time to talk about ways we have been kind to others in the past and we brainstormed ways we can be kind throughout this school year. After our brainstorming session, each child spent time drawing a picture of what they thought it meant to be kind. After drawing, they put a border on their picture and added it to our quilt. The quilt has been laminated and is hanging up in the hallway. We thought it would be a good idea to keep this quilt throughout the year in our classroom as a reminder to always be kind. We hope to add to our quilt as the year progresses.

Sukkot is a time of joyous celebration after Yom Kippur. It is a time of harvest and many Jewish families make a "sukkah" outside their home. A sukkah is a temporary structure that represents the huts the Israelites would have built as they wondered through the dessert after leaving Egypt. The sukkah built today has temporary walls and a natural roof covering in which the stars can still be seen at night. Families spend time in the sukkah throughout the week and even eat meals in them. We spent time this week exploring the sukkah outside our school. Even though it is not complete yet, we wanted the kids to see what it looked like and talk about what it represents. We spent some time in the sukkah reading a story about Sukkot and having snack. Once the sukkah is complete with tables and lights, we will be spending more time in it eating snacks and reading stories. As we explored the sukkah we talked about different ways we would decorate a sukkah. Some of our children who have sukkahs at home told about the different colors and decorations they use to make their sukkah at home. We then came in the classroom and made some decorations of our own. I love how the kids extended this into their play. They were making their own decorations in the art center and some were building temporary structures in the blocks center. We plan on extending our study of Sukkot in the weeks ahead by talking about harvest, the season of fall, and how these effect us and our environment.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Love,
Ms. Rachael


Here is a short list of some standards we worked on this week:

Approaches to Learning:

• Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
• Demonstrate increasing ability to identify and take appropriate risks in order to learn and demonstrate new skills.
• Demonstrate an increasing ability to organize actions and materials in the learning environment.

Social & Emotional:

• Recognize effect on others of own behavior most of the time.
• Develop strategies to express strong emotion with adult help.
• Participate in group life of class.

Language & Literacy:

• Make relevant comments or appropriate responses to story events or characters.
• Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
• Begin to distinguish between real and make-believe in stories read aloud.
• Begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books.
• Explore books independently.

Mathematics:

• Use emergent mathematical knowledge as a problem-solving tool.
• Investigate solutions to simple problems.
• Use appropriate vocabulary to communicate mathematical ideas.
• Understand and use positional words to describe the location of objects (up, down, in, over, under, behind, on top of and in front of).
• Organize and represent data with real objects.

Making our tzedakah boxes...

Discussing kindness and making our quilt...



Enjoy snack and discussing Sukkot in our sukkah...

 

 

Check out our new pattern blocks...we love them!

Wrapping Up Volcanoes

We have had an exciting week in the Aalva class! Even though it was a short week it was busy and full of exploration. We have wrapped up our volcano exploration this week and I am impressed by how much everyone has learned! We have become a class of volcanologists.

We started off the week by adding more volcano books to our library. Ms. Rachael went to the local library and picked up TONS of volcano books for us to read! We spent one morning reading some of the library books, looking at the pictures, searching for new facts, and learning how to take care of books from the library.  While reading one of our library books we discovered that there are over 500 active volcanoes in the world! The book showed a map of the entire world and each volcano location was labeled on the map. It was really cool to see where all of the volcanoes were located. As we looked at these locations we decided to dive deeper and explore some of the volcanoes on the list. We talked about Mount Vesuvius in Italy, Mount St. Helens in Washington State, Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and Sakurajima in Japan.

As we talked more about volcanoes we thought it would be cool for each child to make their very own volcano and name it. It took some trial and error to figure out the best way to make our volcanoes. At first we tried to use toilet paper rolls, but we decided that they made a very weak base for the volcano. After much discussion we decided to use clay because it can harden and become like rock. As we morphed our clay into small volcanoes we discussed the characteristics of the volcanoes. I reminded the kids that each volcano has a hole for the lava to spray out of, but it didn’t take long for someone to correct me and say that some volcanoes have two holes J. I was so amazed to see the student’s reactions as they remembered that each volcano is different.  Some volcanoes have wide holes, some have small holes, and yes some do have two holes! I hope you enjoy looking at their creations outside of our classroom for the next couple of weeks.

On the final day of our volcano exploration we decided to go out with a bang! I mean who can study volcanoes without reconstructing their very own eruption?!  We talked about the fact that volcanoes have lava inside them and, with pressure and a lot of chemical reactions; the lava is forced out of the top. In order to create our very own explosion we used soda and mentos. We watched as the chemicals reacted to one another and hypothesized about how we thought the “lava” would come out. You should have seen their reactions. There was so much excitement and laughter in the room! I am certain it was the highlight of the entire week. It was amazing!

Volcanoes weren’t the only thing we did this week. Like I mentioned before, we had a busy week! Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish holiday that begins this weekend. We spent a lot of time with Morah Sarit learning all about this holiday and the things we do during this celebration of the New Year. We sang songs, read books, wrote cards for our loved ones, baked round challah, ate apples and honey, blew the shofar, and gave extra tzedakah. I am sure you have heard all about the wonderful things we did. If you have any question about the Jewish holidays, Ms. Rachael and I would be happy to answer your questions as best we can. Since we enjoyed learning about Rosh Hashanah this week we have decided to push back our next expert project and really focus on the Jewish holidays that occur throughout the rest of September. These holidays include Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. I cannot wait to dive into these holidays and learn more about them with the children!

The next few weeks of September will have many holidays and due to these holidays Ms. Rachael and I have decided to only write one newsletter for every two weeks of school since each week with be short. We will write you again in two weeks and tell you more about our Yom Kippur and Sukkot studies. Until then, Shana Tova. (Happy New Year!)

Ms. Michelle

Vocabulary words:

During our volcano exploration we learned lots of new words. Here is a list of the vocabulary words along with definitions by some of the children.

Lava- “It’s when magma comes out of the volcano.” Ethan

Volcano- “A mountain that blows out lava, ash and smoke.” James

Eruption- “It explodes from the volcano and lava goes all over.” Taliah

Volcanologist- “They study volcanoes.” Van

Magma- “Melted rock in the volcano.” Sally


Approaching to Learning:

• Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questions and adding ideas.
• Demonstrate delight or satisfaction when completing a task, solving a problem, or making a discovery.
• Understand a task can be accomplished through several steps

Social & Emotional:

• Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time.
• Demonstrate with adult guidance simple techniques to solve social problems.
• Express fears and concerns to familiar adults.

Language & Literacy:

• Incorporate favorite parts of literary texts into play activities.
• Begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books.
• Begin asking "how and why" questions when looking at texts.
• Incorporate information from informational texts into play activities.
• See information by looking at texts, signs, and photographs in the classroom.

Mathematics:

• Begin to show an awareness of numbers in the environment.
• Show one-to-one correspondence through ten when counting real objects.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Shows awareness that money is used to buy things and that coins differ in value.

Making our awesome volcanoes!

 

 

Making our delicious challah...mmm!

 

 

 

Exploring words through poetry and our library books...

 

 

Drawing volcanoes...

 

We made an eruption!

We love our family posters!

 

 

 



   

Becoming Experts

Hello family and friends!

We've officially started our first expert project...on volcanos! We base all of our learning throughout the year on the interests of the kids. We want them to be excited about learning and find it interesting. Our hope is that this will encourage them to become life long learners. To start our year, we made a list of all our different interests. We sat down as a group and talked about what we wanted to learn, topics that we had questions about, and ideas that were interesting to us. After we made a big list, we narrowed it down to 3. From those 3, we voted as a class. We will make sure we take the time to cover each topic of interest throughout the year. As the year passes and we learn new things, we will add to our list and continue to ask questions about new topics. It becomes a cycle throughout the year. We find that sometimes our interests change. As we learn new things, we come up with different questions to new topics. It's always fun to watch their interests change throughout the year. I hope you enjoy the blog as we take you along for the ride!

The first phase of our volcano explorations was making a KWL chart. For each new exploration we work on this year we will make one of these charts. A KWL chart is a list of things that we: K (already know about the subject), W (want to learn more about/questions), and L (what we've learned). Right now we have completed the K (know). The W (want to learn) section is one that continues to grow throughout the study. This is how we base how long each exploration will last. As we begin to run out of questions, we begin to move on to something new. We will leave these charts up in our classroom throughout the study. I encourage you to check out our list (especially our W section as it expands). The kids always ask some great questions...many that I do not know the answer too. It becomes a learning experience for everyone involved. I hope the kids come home to teach you some new facts as well! At the end of our exploration we will return to the chart and list all the things we have learned. It's a great way for us to get an idea of what the kids would like to know more about and to show all we've learned!

Our second phase of exploration this week came from a collection of volcano books. We spent some time in reading workshop looking through the books. We encouraged the kids to get with a reading buddy and simply do a picture walk - flip through the book and look at the pictures together. After they spent some time talking and picture walking we asked if anyone had already learned something new just from paying attention to the pictures. We found that we had several facts to share and some more questions. These types of reading workshops will continue throughout our study. I'm headed to the library this weekend to pick up a large selection of volcano books to add to our study. We will be leaving these books out on our reading center bookshelf for the duration of our exploration.

We also spent some time in writer's workshop this week. To start our workshop we watched a short 3 minute video that explained some volcano facts and showed us what they looked like. After the video, we discussed the new facts we learned. We also discussed what our writings might look like after watching the video. We talked about words we may use in our writing as well as colors we might see in our illustrations. After our discussion, we went to our tables to write. I want to take this time to explain our writing. Some of our writings may be words, some may be pictures, and others may be a combination of both. Our goal during this time is for the kids to build confidence in their writing. If you put something (anything) on paper, then you are a writer! Behind every picture is a story they have come up with. We write down their thoughts as they say them. Some weeks you may see a single word, while other weeks may contain a paragraph. We want this time of writing introduction to be stress-free and fun.

At the moment we are predicting that our exploration will last another 2 weeks but we haven't set a deadline. We want to follow the lead of the kids when it comes to our explorations. If they feel that they've had all their questions answered, then we move on to something new. If they feel they have more questions they need answered, then we keep going. Through each of our explorations we will constantly be meeting language, math, science, and emotional/social standards. It's amazing how these things work hand in hand and always fall into place!

For math workshop this week, we introduced Math Buddies. Once a week each child will be paired up with one of Rabbi Meir's college students to work on math concepts. This week they met their math buddy for the first time and spent some time with them outside playing games based on basic math concepts. The kids had so much to say when they got back to the room! I'm so thankful that we get to participate in this each week. What a wonderful opportunity for the kids! These math sessions will happen along with our math workshops. To start the year, we have geared math workshop around number recognition but, like all our workshops, we will be changing concepts as the kids continue to grow and master new skills. These workshops will always be based around each individual child's needs. Our workshops provide time for us to spend one on one with each child and get a stronger idea of where they are as a learner.

I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend!

Love,
Ms. Rachael


Here is a list of several standards we worked on this week:

Approaches to Learning:

• Demonstrate delight or satisfaction when completeing a task, solving a problem, or making a discovery.
• Show ability to focus attention for increasing variety of chosen tasks and activities for short periods of time (10-20 minutes).
• Understand a task can be accomplished through several steps.
• Reason about events, relationships, or problems.

Social & Emotional:

• Demonstrate confidence by participating in most classroom activities.
• Manage transitions positiviely when told what to expect.
• Display emerging social skills of trying to take turns and talk with others duriing play.
• Recognize effect on others of own behavior most of the time.

Language and Literacy:

• Recall some details in stories read aloud.
• Explore books independently.
• Show interest in informational texts about familiary objects.
• Relate information from texts to personal experience.
• Begin to recognize similarities in sounds at the begging and ending of words.

Mathematics:

• Generate conjectures based on personal experiences and simple reasoning.
• Locate patterns in the environment.
• Count orally forward to twenty and backward from three.
• Use appropriate vocabulary to communicate mathematical ideas.

Here's a glimpse into our classroom this week...enjoy!

Working on our charts and placing our votes!



 

 

 

 

 

We are readers!

 

 

We are writers!

 

 

 

Presenting our family posters...

 

 

Practicing for Shabbot...

 

 

Music with Ms. Natalie!