Ganon Aleph Celebrates Lag B'Omer

We had beautiful weather for our Lag B'Omer celebration on Monday.  All of the early childhood classes participated in some friendly competitive relay races organized by Heela and Atara, Yavneh's B'not Sherut Leumi.  We then had an outdoor picnic lunch, after which we played on the giant moon bouncers which were set up on the lawn.  We returned to our classroom where we invited Ganon Bet to join us for storytelling, songs, and s'mores around our "bonfire."  What a fun and busy day we had!!

Fun Bus Comes to Yavneh

The children in Ganon Aleph had a great time when the Fun Bus came to Yavneh last Friday as a pre-Purim treat.  Daniel and Bernice guided them through some floor exercises, an obstacle course, a swinging tube, and finally out of the bus down a long slide.  What a great way to get some "indoor" exercise when the weather is below freezing!

Gan Gimmel Celebrates the 100th Day!

Last week, Gan Gimmel celebrated the 100th day of school!

Click here to watch a video of all the fun things we did to celebrate!

Ganon Aleph Celebrates Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet

We celebrated Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet on Monday with a fun and festive Purim chagiga in the gym where we sang and danced to the music of BaRock Orchestra along with Ganon Bet, after which some middle school students came to our classroom to do some face painting.  We are all excitedly awaiting the arrival of Purim!!

Fun Times in Gan Gimmel!

Gan Gimmel has been very busy the past few weeks.

Click here to watch a video of what we've been up to!

Yummy Mitzvot!

Gan Gimmel worked together in the annual Early Childhood bake sale to benefit Chai Lifeline's iShine Program!

Making chocolate-dipped pretzels

So much fun!

Telling Rabbi Knapp all about our pretzels

Come taste our yummy baked goods!

Enjoying ices as a thank you for all of our hard work!

Ganon Aleph Helps Out at ECD Bake Sale

The 4th annual ECD Bake Sale took place this week to raise money for i-Shine.  Each early childhood class baked items to sell to older children and staff during lunchtime in the cafeteria.  Ganon Aleph enjoyed "manning" the tables and collecting the money from older siblings and friends.

As a reward for all their hard work, the children were treated to yummy ice pops after the sale was over.  Altogether, over $900 was raised for i-Shine, an after-school program for children living with illness or loss in their homes.  What a great way to put our good middot into practice!

I Had a Little Penguin...

To celebrate our newfound knowledge of penguins, Gan Gimmel created our very own penguins out of paper mache!

Please click here to see our creations!

Virtual Mishkan By Gan Gimmel

In this week’s parsha, תרומה. Hashem asks Moshe to have Bnei Yisrael build a משכן, a holy dwelling place for him. Moshe asks Bnei Yisrael to contribute gold or silver to help build the משכן. Bnei Yisrael build a special מזבח in the משכן so they can bring קרבנות, animals, as presents to Hashem. They created a מנורה and a שלחן to hold the לחם הפנים, the holy bread. Hashem also told Moshe to build the ארון to have a safe place to keep the לוחות. They carried the משכן with them wherever they went in the desert. We discussed how our homes are permanent, along with our classroom and Yavneh Academy. We come to the same place everyday. When Bnei Yisrael were in the מדבר ,they would move around all of the time so everything had to be portable. That’s why many parts of the משכן  were put together with poles.

We worked as teams to create replicas of the כלים from the משכן. Each group picked from the various materials in our classroom to create their כלי and then worked together using a picture of the כלי to help replicate it to the best of their abilities. 


Please click on the link to enjoy our virtual Mishkan


 http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/the-mishkan/16454045/?s=PsoKpg&ref=appemail

Toboggan Like a Penguin

Gan Gimmel learned that penguins waddle because they have short legs, but they can slide on their bellies, or toboggan, to get around quickly.

We gave tobogganing a try for ourselves!

It's so much quicker to toboggan than to waddle!

We also discovered that tobogganing on the smooth floor is so much easier than tobogganing on the rough rug!

Little Picassos

Gan Gimmel recently learned about Pablo Picasso as part of our art curriculum. We focused a lot on Picasso’s Cubist Period since he is famous for starting Cubism. When looking at his works, we noticed that Picasso’s paintings seemed to look like many different pieces put into one. The people that he painted looked silly; painted with bright colors, faces split in half, and eyes and mouths facing different directions.

 

Pablo Picasso. Dora Maar au Chat. 1941.

Inspired by Picasso’s Cubist style, we decided to make our own portraits. First we made faces and put lines through the middle to split them in half. Then, using different bright papers with various designs, we created eyes, ears, mouths, hair, and more! Inspired by Picasso’s love of collaging, we collaged the features onto the faces. Come take a look at our Picasso portraits hanging in our classroom!

Officer Sal Teaches ECD Children About Safety

Officer Sal, a retired Paramus police officer who works in Yavneh security, visited all the early childhood classes this week to talk about safety.  He covered many topics including:  wearing a helmet when you're on a bike or scooter, crossing the street in the crosswalk, stranger safety, what to do if you get lost, from whom it is safe to ask for help, and opening the door only with a parent's permission.
We are so lucky to have Officer Sal at Yavneh!

S-N-O-W!!!!

Gan Gimmel loves the snow!