Hello! Shalom! Sholem-Aleykhem!

This week we had an especially musical day, with a special program: Traveling the Yiddishland with Dmitri Slepovitch. Children were invited to gather and learn about Yiddishkayt and popular Yiddish songs, performed by ethnomusicologist and acclaimed Klezmer musician, Dmitri "Zisl" Slepovitch. There was singing, dancing, and we even learned a bit of Yiddish. Little did we know, we already know and use Yiddish in our everyday life! Did you know 'Bagel' is actually a Yiddish word? Later we had a visit from Paul, as we continue to get ready for next week's Chanukah party (get ready for quite the concert!). 

We also continued to explore Hebrew letters as we also got up and moved our body in this fun interactive letter hunt! Beginning together, we overlooked several Hebrew letters built out of blocks and waited for various letters to be called. 

After a letter was called, we raced to find the matching block letters (without pushing of course!)

 Once a letter was found, we sat as a team around the letter we had found. This was not only a fun way to learn our Hebrew letters, but it was a great way to get our bodies involved! 

The End of our First Cycle

This Saturday we had both completions and new beginnings!

We had our last day of our first specialty -- ceramics, and there we put our final touches on our Menorahs with gorgeous paint colors. Following this theme, we LEARNED BLESSINGS, told STORIES, and DISCUSSED the holiday of CHANNUKAH. Of course Paul came to sing our favorite Chanuukah songs. During story-time, we learned about all the special symbols and components that are relevant to Channukah -- the menorah with eight openings for light along with a ninth Shamash, jelly doughnuts and warm latkes, golden coins called GELT, DREIDELS, and, as Quincy put it: the best thing of all -- the warmth of family and friends.

We continued our conversation/artistic representations on the seven days of creation. We filled in our creation circles with the specific category of worldliness that was created on each day. (See last week's post for a recap).

Finally, with the most eager of anticipation, we filmed our our first short film! We will make a creative video of each day for the next few weeks as we move into our second cycle -- storytelling!

Next week we are organizing a field trip to the place for stories... the library! We will be sending out an email with more details.

We are also looking forward to welcoming our parents/guardians into the classroom Saturday, November 23rd celebrate Channukah -- the Festival of Lights and the closing of our first cycle!

Here Comes the Sun

Creation was in the air today! 

As we gear up for Hanukah we created our very own Menorahs in ceramics. 

 

As we continue in our classroom with our exploration of stories, we discussed the Creation Story. We listened first and then decided to try our hand at acting it out... with great success! 

We wiggled our way throughout the seven days of creation, from water to sky and sun, to animals of the land and sea. 

After taking a singing break with Paul, we returned to our stories. Kids split up into three groups to illustrate the days and creation. 

Group 1 covered Days 1-3 (the creation of light, day and night, sky, water and land), Group 2 covered Day 4 (the creation of the sun and moon) and Group 3 explored Day 5 (the creation of sea creatures and birds). Next week we will continue to explore Days 6 and 7. 

Next week we will also continue to explore stories as we continue to think about upcoming Hanukah as well as our own stories and storytelling unit with Joyce.