Sukkot, Simchat Torah and Back to Regular Schedule

Dear Kindergarten Families,

We had an exciting first full week of school! Our kindergartners feel really comfortable, confident and engaged with their friends and learning activities.

In English Language Arts, we learned the letter E and the sound /e/ it makes (like in /egg/). We practiced forming upper and lowercase letters Ee using Handwriting Without Tears books, wooden planks, dry erase boards and wiki stix. We encouraged the children to draw pictures of things that begin with letters D and E and try to label their pictures.

We worked on Words Their Way spelling activities practicing beginning sounds M, L, S, T, N and word families -ag (bag, flag) and -an (man, fan). We worked on our Writing project learning about elements of writing a good story and began our “Small Moment” story from real events of our lives.

In Math, we were working on numbers 0-10, practicing counting objects from 1 to 10, writing numbers 1-9, and playing games with number recognition and adding or taking away by one. We introduced a “Ten Frame” which helps our children with counting and recognizing amounts. Ask them about the ten frame and play some games with counting coins, beans, buttons, etc.

In Social Studies, we continued the “All About Me” unit by talking about our families. We began with the book “All Families Are Different” by Nina Pellegrini, and then each student made a family portrait and labeled the members of their family.

In Science, we continued learning about our five senses and explored the sense of hearing. We conducted two science experiments: first, we listened to sounds and had to match it to the pictures on our bingo boards, and the second experiment was an open-ended exploration of sounds by creating musical instruments with recycled materials. The children used boxes, containers, rubber bands, paper clips, tape and other materials and invented very interesting instruments!

The children also were very excited about our first week of Show-and-Tell. They were learning many crucial skills without even realizing how important it is to be able to stand in front of your class and present your sharing, describe it, form and answer questions, and be polite taking turns and listening to your friends.

In Hebrew, this week we started learning about colors: adom-red, kachol-blue, yarok-green, tzahov-yellow, katom-orenge. We sorted blocks by color and each student presented the blocks by naming the colors and counting the parts. In addition, we played bingo games with the colors and other vocabulary we learned. We also read the classic children’s book “Maase Bechamisha Balonim” by Miryam Rot, which is about 5 children who each have a balloon of a different color as well as “Pilim Bechol Hatzvaeem” by Ami Rubinger. On Thursday, Yaheli, our Shinshin visited and taught us a fun song about colors.

In Judaics, we started learning about the creation of the world. On the first day G-d created the light and called it Ohr. He also called the darkness choshech. He then called the ohr-yom (day) and the choshech he called lylah (night). The children drew light and darkness in their special project for the creation of the world.

Vocabulary (new and old):  geshem- rain, shemesh- sun, ananim- clouds, ruach- wind, ohr- light, choshech-darkness, sameach-happy, atzuv -sad, koes- mad. Ani poh- I am here , Yeled -boy, Yalda-Girl, tapuach-apple, rimon-pomegranate, shofar, challa , glidah- ice cream, dvash-honey, abba – father, ima-mother, saba-grandfather, savta- grandmother, shalom, boker tov – good morning, bevakasha- please, lakum – (to) get up, lashevet – (to) sit

Have a great weekend!

Shabbat Shalom,

Regina, Irit, Rachel and Ilana

 

Decorating Cupcakes with our 4th grade buddies in the sukkah!

Kindergarten Family Breakfast in the sukkah!

Celebrating Simchat Torah with our 4th grade Buddies!

Our first Kindergarten Field Trip – to Bryce’s sukkah!

After-school Art: George Seurat, Pointilism

Using math manipulatives to create patterns and other designs

Boggle Jr. teaches us how to spell words

We made our own colored rice!

E is for Envelope: writing letters to our families

Reading with our 3rd grade siblings

Making musical instruments out of recycled materials in science class on the “Sense of Hearing”

In the park with our buddies

Happy BIrthday, Almah!

Art with Iviva:

The past few weeks have been fun: We decorated flags for Simchat Torah, which we got to wave in the school celebration; we learned about the color wheel and named all the colors in the rainbow; and we learned “scratch art” — making a drawing with all the colors in the rainbow, covering it with a layer of black crayon, and scratching away some of the black crayon to reveal th

Te colors underneath.