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We have had an incredible last few weeks of school. On Monday we went to the Prospect Park Zoo and met many animals. We reviewed their names like קוף, גורילה, פרפר, כלב ים. This week we went in depth in our learning about Shavuot. Our sfirat ha’omer count is almost at 49, and you know what that means… We counted out seven full weeks from Passover to Shavuot. We read “Ten Good Rules,” a book that explains the ten commandments, then wrote our own rules for the world. We also learned a story that every Jewish person who ever existed... Read More

Dear Families, Our late spring days have been filled to the brim with learning new things in between our special events! In math, we have been strengthening our addition and counting-on skills by playing partner games such as “boxes” with dice and “double compare” with cards. We used 5 frames and 10 frames to add and practice counting-on as well.  Without counting, we are starting to recognize 5 and 10 groupings right away. We have enjoyed telling each other subtraction stories with and without our bead bracelets! In writing, we have been working on making our stories longer and stronger... Read More

Our days have been filled with very special events over the last two weeks. On Kesher Day we welcomed many grandparents and special friends and had the chance to mark on both maps and a graph the countries where they were all from. Then Kindergartners and their grown ups drew and colored the flags from those countries. What a beautiful display the flags created in color, design, and the diversity they represent. Undaunted by the rain, Kindergartners jumped right into the Rainy Day schedule and had great fun participating in a whole range of indoor games with their color teams... Read More

Kindergarten has been a whirlwind of events and industrious learning! We have been enjoying reading and discussing many of Kevin Henkes books to improve our reading and writing craft. We also enjoy comparing and contrasting the stories! We explored how he shows character emotions through pictures and words and are starting add feelings to our narrative sentences and illustrations. We also are noticing emotions in books we read independently. We have jumped into the world of surveys through thinking of topic, asking people what they like best of three things, recording, graphing, and analyzing the results. The office staff and... Read More

We’ve been hard at work in Kindergarten getting ready for some special events. When we returned after Passover we had a celebration for Mimouna, a North African Jewish holiday. We baked our own pitas and made special dill cream cheese for a big chametz feast. On Monday we visited The Painted Pot. Our class walked carefully down Smith Street to our neighborhood ceramics studio for a fun project: painting Kiddush cups for our Shabbat boxes. We learned about the kiln and glazing. This week we had another big celebration: Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. We celebrated Israel’s birthday by learning... Read More

Kindergartners were very busy with projects this week.  In social studies we have been representing the block that Hannah Senesh sits on in three different media after out trip outside to document what we see.  Some children are working on murals, some on paper collages, and some with building blocks. The goal is to represent the block accurately.  For example, not all the buildings are the same height, some show an address or name, and they all have different items out front. Children also learned about some of the fixtures on the sidewalk that help the city function such as bike racks,... Read More

A new baby sister, covers for our information books, counting by two’s and fives, studying maps, and sending cars down ramps made from one, two or three blocks give you just a taste of the excitement this week in the Kindergarten General Studies Room. Naomi welcomed her new baby sister Alona and shared pictures and information with the rest of the class who listened attentively. We added her pictures to those of Liz and her baby and realized that we will have more to add to this baby gallery in the coming weeks. We continue to work on our information... Read More

We started learning about Pesach this week! First we made a chart of all the things we already know. It was a long list! Then we talked about the word seder/סדר and that it means order. The Pesach seder is a time when we follow the directions and tell the story of the Jewish people’s freedom from slavery while leaving Egypt. We’ve been practicing the four questions/מה נשתנה every day, asking why this night is different from all other nights. Yesterday we learned about the contents of a seder plate. We really love the book The Passover Seder by Emily Sper because... Read More