Sukkot of Our Ancestors

Did you ever wonder where the idea of a sukkah comes from? Ask the children in Gan Bet and they will take you on a journey back to our past! The children in Gan Bet pretended to be Bnei Yisrael in the midbar, as they carried lumber, walls for temporary houses, sticks, and even the Torah on a long journey. They followed ananim, large pillars of cloud, just as Bnei Yisrael did, watching the position of the clouds to signal times for rest and travel. They truly understood the need for such temporary houses and understood the hard work that the Jewish people must have had to do each time they set up camp.

Building for the Chicks!

Our eggs have hatched and we have 6 adorable baby chicks! The children were so excited to watch them hatch. We have learned to take care of them. Everyday we feed them and make sure that they have plenty of water. The chicks have grown quickly and are no longer in the incubator. They have a new home and we can play with them.

The children spent several days planning and building a house for them. The house has several rooms with labels. They put the chicks in the house and are very excited to watch them explore all of the rooms!

Ganon Aleph Learns About the Job of an Architect

To deepen our understanding about the building of the Mishkan Tali's mommy, Susan Berman, came in to talk about her job as an architect. She showed the children some blueprints, and described many things that an architect has to think about when she draws the plans for a building, such as: who will be using the building; how many people it can accommodate; safety considerations; sunlight hours; weather conditions; and special designs. She told the children that in New Jersey, all the houses are have triangular shaped roofs, so that the heavy snow won't sit on top. In California, however, many homes have flat roofs. In the photo above, she uses a yellow pepper to demonstrate the floor plans on the different floors in the house!

House Art and Chanukkah Activity

We have continued to investigate houses. We toured the neighborhood and compared houses. We looked for shapes that the houses had in common and found many shapes that were the same. After investigating Edward Hopper, a still life painter, who loved to paint houses the children took on the task of painting their own houses. We are sharing a glimpse of their work.

Chanukah has been a focus of activity. the children are busy learning the story and retelling the story. We are making special project for the holiday. We have been working on a special drip mat for their chanukiyah. They are designing and creating their own drip mats.

Neighborhood Walk and Gardening

This week we continued our study of shapes and houses. In small groups the children took a neighborhood walk. Armed with paper and pencils the children studied the houses that they saw. They sketched the shapes of the houses and compared notes. It was fun watching them work together to find all of the familiar shapes. We are planning to take another walk and visit a house under construction.

The children are becoming landscape architects as we design our special garden. We are turning the soil and pulling the grass. The children are designing where the bulbs will be planted. They are excitedly looking forward to the spring when their bulbs will pop out of the ground. We are also designing a window box for the classroom. We are planning on planting string beans, bulbs and some green plants. The children want to beautify our classroom.

Home Sweet Home

After learning how Avraham lived in a tent, the children were interested in other types of dwellings. They had already seen pictures of many different sukkot. The children read several books about houses, but their favorite was This Is My House by Arthur Dorros, a book about different houses around the world. Gan Daled was excited to use a variety of materials to construct different types of buildings. Using their math and fine motor skills, they produced architectural masterpieces.