Chanukkah, Olive Oil, Self Care

Chanukkah Fun with Buddies!

We had two candle lighting celebrations this week. On Wednesday we practiced lighting just our class, and on Thursday we got together with our sixth grade buddies for candle lighting and dreidel playing. Chanukiyot made in art class also went home this week, as well as dreidel presents from the PA. Happy Chanukkah to all the second grade families!

Olive Oil Factory

in honor of Chanukkah, we had another visit from Rabbi Fried who came to show us how to make olive oil. First we got to see and touch fresh olives. Then we put them in a mesh bag at the bottom of a press. Next we helped Rabbi Fried place wooden blocks in the press, and twisted the mechanism down more and more to crush the olives. This caused juice to come out of the olives which delighted the children. We watched as Rabbi Fried transfer the olive juice to test tubes to be placed in a centrifuge machine, which spins the juice very fast, When he removed the test tubes, the oil had separated to the top of the test tubes. Lastly, we tested our freshly pressed olive oil, to see if it would burn in a chanukiyah, and it did!

Self Care

This week in second grade we learned about self care, and what it means to have strategies to care for ourselves. We read the book The Good Egg by Jory John and Pete Oswald, which tells about an egg who is starting to feel the pressure of always being the well behaved egg in a carton of trouble makers. When his shell starts to crack from the stress of trying to make everyone behave, he decides to leave. When he leaves he has “me time”- he paints, swims, reads, takes deep breaths, and sits quietly. By taking care of his own needs he heals his cracks. He wants to return to his carton but how? The good egg learns that he cannot control the other eggs, but can be a role model to them, and also learns that sometimes it can be okay to be a little bad behaved himself.

We talked about how we can take care of ourselves when we feel stressed. Some students shared that they like to read, draw, or play a sport. Some shared they take 3 deeps breaths. Some of us shared that we like to find a quiet space and just cry it out for a little bit. We then made our own good eggs and wrote about what strategies we can use so we don’t crack. You can come check out our self care bulletin board in the classroom!

Over the break, discuss what things you are doing as a family for self care. Visiting family members, going on a vacation, or spending time together are great ways to recharge!