Kindergarten Blog 5/5

Dear Kindergarten Families,

We had a fun week in Kindergarten! The children had a great time making kiddush cups at the pottery studio. Kindergartners sculpted their own kiddush cups using slabs of clay. They learned to attach clay embellishments to their cups using the “scratch and attach” technique, and then painted their cups with different colors of glaze. We can’t wait to see how our cups turned out! Over the next few weeks, our cups will be fired in the kiln at the pottery studio, and then Kindergartners will get to show you their finished product at our special Kabbalat Shabbat on May 19th.

This week in Hebrew/Judaics, we continued learning about Lag B’Omer and about Rabbi Akiva who said “Ve’ahavta le’re’aacha kamocha”; “You should love your friend just like you love yourself.” We learned about the tradition of building a “medura” (bonfire), as is the custom in Israel on Lag B’Omer. We read the book “Sadie’s Lag Ba’Omer Mystery”, and we made our own medurot out of tissue paper and plastic cups. Kindergartners also found out what color-team they will be a part of during our Lag B’Omer field day on Tuesday May 9th. Everyone brought home a slip of paper, with their color-team written on it. Please let us know if you don’t know what color team your Kindergartner will join next week, so that we can let you know.  

We continue to count the Omer every day during our morning and afternoon meetings, preparing for Chag Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates “Matan Torah” (the giving of the Torah).

vocabulary:

Bonfire Medura  מדורה

Fire Esh         אש

Potato Tapuach Adama  תפוח-אדמה

Dance Rikod      ריקוד

             חץ וקשת  Bow and arrow Chetz ve keshet                                                                 

In General Studies we made fruit salad and corn muffins and delivered them to the Community Fridge. Thank you for your generosity in contributing so much beautiful and delicious fruit.  Each group also had a discussion about the question in the Morning Message: “Why do we cook for the Community Fridge?”  Children had lots of ideas about helping people who do not have the money for the food they need. We talked about mitzvahs. We also talked about the fact that food has gotten more expensive this year and that we are lucky to have enough food to share. 

In Writing Workshop, kindergartners have been studying story beginnings. We have been practicing good beginnings that tell the reader Who the story is about, Where the story takes place, and What will happen next, and then Jumping Right Into the story.

In Science, kindergartners have continued to apply what they know about living and nonliving things. We went out onto Smith street to document what we observed around us and categorized everything into “Living” and “Nonliving.”

In Math we finished up our study of solid shapes by looking at pyramids and rectangular prisms. We also experimented to see what shapes can roll, slide and stack.  It was only the cylinders,  and we saw that cylinders are round and have two flat surfaces, allowing them to do all three. We also returned to counting to higher numbers through a combination of counting by tens and ones and filled in missing numbers on a 100’s chart. 

Shabbat Shalom,

K Team