Learning about Animals in Science and Judaics and with AriSafari!

Dear Kindergarten Families,

We hope you enjoyed your long weekend! We had a great week in Kindergarten! The highlight of our week was Ari Safari with his amazing animals. The children really enjoyed the show “Animal Defenses” and got to learn about and touch some rare animals, such as a toad, snake, chameleon, legless lizard and a chinchilla. Ask your children what their favorite animal was and what was the most surprising thing they learned.

In Math, we learned about pairs and counting by 2. We practiced making pairs of socks, gloves, shoes, tiles and much more. We also practiced counting various objects by 2 between 0-20. On Thursday, we introduced “tally” and counting by 5. The children used craft sticks to create various amounts using tally marks. Ask your child to show you how to count using tally marks and how to count by 2s and 5s.

In English Language Arts, we learned the letter Qq and the sound /qw/ it makes (as in ‘quilt’). We practiced forming upper and lowercase letters Qq using our Handwriting Without Tears books, wooden planks, and finding words that start with Q and drawing pictures of them. We made a class “Friendship Quilt” for the letter Q! You can see it displayed near our cubbies. In our Words Their Way spelling sorts, we worked on word families -at (as in cat), -eg, -et and -en (as in men, net and leg) and other skills depending on our groups.

In Writing, we continued our Fairy Tales unit. We have started to familiarize ourselves with the songs in “Beauty and the Beast” to prepare for the 8th grade musical! We are reading a variety of fairy tales and working on writing our own!

In Social Studies, we began learning about American presidents in preparation for President’s Day. We talked about the role of the president and where the president lives. We also talked about the values that are important for a president and looked through the pictures of our former president Barak Obama in a beautiful book “Dream Big Dreams” by Pete Souza.

In Science this week we began our unit Exploring Plants and Animals. We talked about the difference between living and non-living things. The children were engaged in a fun discussion about what determines living and non-living things and sorting them out. We also got the opportunity to see animals close up with Ari Safari!

In Hebrew this week we reviewed vocabulary related to parts of the body such as: rosh- head, af- nose, enayim- eyes, oznayiom- ears, yadayim- hands, raglayim- legs, beten- belly, gav- back, seaar- hair. We also continued reviewing vocabulary related to clothes and dressed up dolls and pictures of Dani and Dina. (Chultza-shirt , michnasayim-pants, kovah- hat, simlah- dress, meil- coat, chatzait- skirt, Kfafot- gloves, naalayim- shoes, magafayim- boots.)

We sang songs such as “Yesh Li Yesh Li Shtei Yadayim.” We played matching games and did a puzzle which connects words to their beginning letter.

Finally, we read books such as “ Ayelet Metayelet” by Ronit Hoper and “Bobi Bo Bobi Lech“ by Ami Rubinger.

In Judaics we learned about the sixth day of creation. G-d created animals (chayot) and the first man and woman: Adam and Chavah.

We discussed the different animals G-d created, such as aryeh- lion, girafa- giraffe, nachash- snake, tzav- turtle, pil- elephant, arnav- rabbit, dov- bear. We learned that on the seventh day, which is Shabbat, G-d rested and did not create anything. We also started learning about the Hebrew month of Sh’vat and the holiday Tu Bishvat, which is the birthday for the Ilanot or Etzim (trees). We sang the song “Tu Bishvat Hegiah Chag Lailanot,” in celebration of nature and all the gifts that trees give us.

Upcoming events:

January 24 and 25 – 8th Grade Musical “Beauty and the Beast.” We’ll see the dress rehearsal on Wednesday morning at 10am.
January 31 – Tu’B’shvat celebrated at school
Thursday, February 8 – Learning about Winter Olympic Games
Friday, February 9 – Yom Ivrit
Wednesday, February 14 – celebration of Lunar New Year in class
Thursday, February 15- Pajama Day
February 19-23 – Mid-Winter School Break
Monday, February 26 – 100th Day of School
Thursday, March 1 – Purim celebrated at school (children come in costumes!)

Have a great weekend!

Shabbat Shalom,

Regina, Irit, Rachel, and Ilana

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Using playdough balls and toothpicks to create 3D/solid shapes

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Caleb’s Grandma was our Mystery Guest and taught us a song and told us a funny story from the book “Jewish Tales” and gave the book to our class as a gift!