The children were excited to play together. Everyone was well and back at school.

These photos were taken over the last five days of school.

Last week Mendel and Elet built a barn for the animals. For safety reasons, we separated out the farm animals from the wild animals who are found in rain forests! 

We used a collection of buttons (found objects) to create 3D designs with playdough.

On Wednesday, we celebrated Sara's birthday at school.  We saw photos of Sara at one, two and three years. We saw Sara's tiny newborn's pajamas!  We laughed when Sara was asked if she could put them on for us. We talked about all of the things that we didn't know how to do and how much we have all learned over the past 4 years.  The children were full of thoughtful memories.

Then we sang Happy Birthday to Sara in English and Hebrew.  

Sara is a frequent visitor to the Art Center. With this in mind the children made beautiful watercolor cards that we put together for a class gift,

We are very busy with an Art unit which will last for a total of four weeks. Science has been integrated into this study as well. We are learning all about trees.  We are seeing  how four different artists were so inspired by trees that they became a major part of their work.

The children will be sharing a lot more about this exciting study. 

The Science table now has a digital scale. The children are learning to recognize numbers on the scale and on a number strip taped onto the table. Through this experience, they are at the very beginning stage of seeing how one paper-clip (1 oz,) weighs less than three paperclips (3 Oz.) The number 3 has greater weight and value than the number 1. 

Other things that we weighed:

erasers

a pencil

Peretz's kippa

blocks

markers

a pair of scissors

a paper cup

 It was very exciting.

Other fun happenings:

 A visit from a baby brother who wants to sign up and stay for the morning.

A shopping trip complete with purses and a back pack to hold the baby's things.

Elet played with a large cardboard tunnel which served as a fire hose. It also makes people's voices sound very different. 

We celebrated the first day that the temperature was in the high 60's by having a parade on the playground complete with musical instruments. We also joined with the other class and played with the parachute. 

We took a vote and it was decided that we would eat outside on the picnic table.

 It was so much fun that the children asked if we could eat outside every day. 

So Happy to Be Back!

 What has been going on during the past week?

We continue dwith our study of trees. 

                                      Some questions that we are asking:                                         

                                                   Are trees alive?                                                               How many trees live in the world?

    Why are trees so important?

   Where do trees come from?

We are also reading books and learning songs about trees.
Trees are very inspiring. 
We will learn how to move like a tree!

We started looking at several famous artists and seeing what their trees looked like.

                                                     Jacob, Nechama Lieba, Hilary and Sara are painting to foam boards with gold paint.

Other discoveries: these "straws" don't just make square towers. They can make many different things by changing the shape.

What is going on outside on the playground?

Hilary takes out some sand from her shoe!

                                                  Nechama Lieba loves helping out with the younger children from the other class.

Elet loves shoveling and raking.

Jacob hangs out in the tunnel-slide.

 Rolling down the hill is very fun although, "it makes me too dizzy."

Two distinct building projects were going on. 

They were running out of blocks. They decided to combine their efforts and make two buildings that were attached to make one.

Chayla takes time away from play to use colored pencils after putting on her sheitel. 

 Today we met a very friendly dog named Rocky. We remembered to ask the owner if Rocky liked to be touched by children. She said that he did!

Another packed morning.... 

Today, we literally ran out of time - we had to have our Morning Meeting during lunch.  We called it: meet and eat!  We were interested to hear that we started a new month called February. A few children could tell us that today was Thursday!

In addition to continuing many of yesterday's activities, we also started an art unit by looking at painting and noticing  the squiggly patterned lines that are all around us. We looked at the use of squiggly lines in a painting by Gustav Klimpt called, "The Tree of Life." Klimpt used lots of gold foil in his work.

We were surprised at how capable the children were of making these types of 

lines which they hadn't made before. First they traced the shape. Then they tried to draw it on their own. 

"It looks just like a snail"

"It's a number 6"

"This is easy for me"

"I can't do it because its too hard"

Everyone was successful.

Then the children painted the squiggly lines with gold paint!

 Just amazing!

We also painted  brown paper with sponges and spray bottles. 

We read, The Night Gorilla which was a funny story with very few words. We played and tried new things. We used  "Helping Hands" to do our jobs and then, after snack, we finally went outside! 

It was beautiful. The children noticed that the sky wasn't grey. It was blue, (even if you can't see it by the time we took this photo!)

We could see and feel the sun!

SO MUCH EXCITEMENT: THINKING, BUILDING AND CREATING TOGETHER

First, Dalya started to build an amazing house. Mendel joined in. Together, they worked on the house until it was taller than each of them. 

Then they laid the tower down on the floor.  Others came over to see and took a turn at "stepping into the house."  It was quite amazing that everyone got in and out without falling or breaking the structure. 

 The children put "people" and furniture into the apartments. Each apartment had  different family group. Everyone came over to see.

Later, Remy, Elet and Dalya explored with the magna tiles on the projector. They built an enormous airplane. This s was taken prior to the completion of the plane!)

 Dalya and the  others were delighted to see the results of their actions.