DOES IT MEASURE UP?

Tamar and Ethan using strips of paper

How big is a pumpkin? In our Math Center  the children had the opportunity to measure our pumpkin using various devices. The class quickly realized that they could not measure the pumpkin with a ruler.

Ella G. and Alex using paper clips

They were excited to use big and little paper clip chains, strips of paper and plastic links to measure the circumference. We can't wait to learn what else we will do with our pumpkin.

Seasonal Math!

 As we continued exploring the concepts of addition, we had some fun making our own equations for our peers to solve. One friend set up the petals on the flower, and the other counted the amount of petals per color in order to set up, and solve the addition equation.  

    

We worked together in pairs to practice what we learned!                                         

More and less, bigger and smaller!

ABC's & 1 2 3's by Morah Shani 

Partnering with Parents 

Ready to build a snowman and do a little engineering??? 

It takes practice and learning to understand how big the base of the snowman should be, and the relative sizes of the other two snowballs. Be prepared to let children try to put a large head on top, then figure out why it didn't stay on. While building, use the words "more" and "less," as well as "bigger" and "smaller" to help build these important scientific and mathematical concepts.

 

Chanukah Workshop

The children enjoyed our Chanukah Workshop this morning where they had an opportunity to enjoy some science and math activities in each of the early childhood classrooms. In Ganon Bet they made edible menorahs, created colorful designs by spinning dreidels in paint, and used their five senses to look through magic glasses, taste potato chips in different dips, listen to Chanukah music, smell spices, and feel objects in a "touch box." In Gan Aleph they went through an obstacle course and created Chanukah rubbings. In Gan Bet they made Chanukah cookies and edible dreidels, and decorated Chanukah bags. In Gan Gimmel they played a latke number game, made dreidel graphs, and did some patterning with candles. They then returned to our classroom where they made wax resist paintings, created mirror images, and experimented with colors on a light box. What creative ways to have fun and learn at the same time!!

We Love Playing Dreidel!

The children in Ganon Aleph have been playing the traditional dreidel game using pennies. We sing the dreidel song to help us remember the rules:

Nun means you get nothing, Gimmel means you win

Hay means you get half the pot, and Shin means put one in!

They practice math skills, Hebrew letter recognition, as well as waiting patiently for their turns!

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Addition is a Piece of Cake!

How many ways can you make the number 8!? In honor of the 8 days of chanukah, Gan
Aleph put their addition skills to the test! We spent the week learning about all of the numbers from 0 through 8. We created different math sentences each day to represent the number we wer elearning. We sat as a group and experimented with 8 candles. The children worked together to take 1 candle and figure out how many more candles they need to make the number 8. We used numbers and math signs to help us create different math sentences to go with our candle equations. The children each created their own "How Many Ways Can You Make 8!?" book to reinforce these concepts.

Can You Find the Pattern?

The ability to identify, extend, and create patterns is an important math skill in kindergarten. In Gan Bet, the children used many hands-on materials to help them learn more about patterns. Some of these included beads and basic school supplies. The children worked in pairs to begin and extend various patterns. They challenged each other to continue
the pattern, enjoying their shared work and ideas.

Gan Aleph's Amazing Apples!

If you walk down the halls of Yavneh and heard some children munching and crunching, it was probably the sound of Gan Aleph tasting apples! This week, Gan Aleph learned aboutapples through literacy, science, math, movement and of course it did not go without some special snacks (like apple jacks)!We learned about apple trees and how they change through the different seasons. After reading The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons, the children made their own apple tree seasons book! They used different art materials to depict what the apple tree looks like during the seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

We played an apple matching game in which the children had to match upper case and lower case letters to complete a full apple shape.

The children tasted red, yellow and green apples and decided which one they liked the best. We wrote about it and we used our math skills to graph their apple choice in a bar graph.

We predicted what would happen if we left a sliced apple out in the classroom. The children will soon begin to see the apple

changing and drying out! When the apple turns dry we will talk

about dried fruit and taste dried apples and apple chips!

We painted trees to go with our apple writings! We encourage you to come visit our outside bulletin board where you will see these beautiful apples!

As Gan Aleph sits down to their table to dip their apples in honey, they will surely be able to tell you some amazing facts about apples! What a delicious week this was!

Busy as Bees in Ganon Aleph

The children have been learning all about bees and how honey is made. They created their own beehive number matching games to bring home. First, they used their fine motor skills to cut out beehive shapes, then they used paint rollers to decorate them, and finally, they used their fingerprints to make little bees on craft sticks for matching the numbers one through ten. What a fun way to practice math skills!

Learning about Life Cycles in Gan Aleph

"Frogs here, frogs there, frogs were jumping everywhere!" Gan Aleph decided to learn about frogs and wanted to know more about where they came from. We began with an activity in which the children were presented with pictures of Morah Aviva, from birth until now. They were challanged to put these pictures in the proper sequence, bearing in mind the natural order of one's life. For example, the children knew that her kindergarten picture would be placed after some baby pictures but before her wedding picture. After putting all of these pictures in order (and laughing while looking at some of them!) we went through Morah Aviva's life cycle thus far. We learned that living things have stages in their lives which led us to explore a frog's life cycle.

The children were provided with more pictures, this time of the different stages in a frog's life. They worked together to put the pictures in the proper order, and learned that frogs start off as eggs. The egg hatches into a tadpole which then grows into a froglet and ultimately a frog!

We read the book If You Hopped Like Frog, by David Shwartz and recreated his book with our own ideas and frogs jumping off the page! Through this book ,we learned that frogs can jump a distance of 20 times its body length! We took turns jumping on a number line to see how far we could jump and compared it to a frog's jumping abilities!

Frogs here, Frogs there, Frogs were jumping everywhere...Especially in Gan Aleph!!!!

Gan Aleph celebrates the 100th Day of School!

Ladies and Gentlemen ...It's the moment you have all been waiting for... THE 100th DAY of SCHOOL!!!!
This week, we celebrated the 100th day of school with movement, food, math and a whole lot of fun!
We began the day by filling bags with one hundred snacks! There were 10 plates on the table with a different snack on each. The children counted by tens as they filled their bags with 10 of each snack in order to make 100 snacks!
Next, we put on our hats and necklaces and joined the other kindergartens for a 100 day celebration! We played 100 number bingo, did 100 exercises and worked with our friends from the other classes to create something out of 100 of a certain item (paperclips, cups, pipecleaners etc.).
We ended the celebration by filling a poster with the number 100 on it with pennies we had brought from home. This money will be given to tzedakah!
When we returned to the classroom we played a game in which a group of children sat with a 100 number board. They took turns rolling the dice and added the two numbers together. They crossed out the number combined by the dice on their board and kept doing so until someone reached the number 100! Other children worked on a different type of chart in which they were provided with a board with the numbers 1 through 100 on it. They were also given stickers with different numbers on it. They worked together to match the stickers to the correct number until the whole board was filled!
We ended the day with a cake and are looking forward to the next 100 days of school!

Combining Math With Purim

In Ganon Bet the children are devising their own original patterns to create beautiful crowns for Purim!!

Making our Own Ice Cream in Ganon Aleph

Kayla's mom, Keren Nussbaum, came to our class this week to make ice cream with the children. It was truly an experiment because we weren't sure if it would work, but it did! Mmm, mmm, delicious!! Math and science skills were used for measuring, counting, pouring, shaking, and watching a liquid turn into a solid! We are including the recipe in case you want to try this at home: chocolate soy milk, sugar, large zip-loc bag, small zip-loc bag, ice cubes, salt. Pour 1/2 cup chocolate soy milk and 1 tbsp. sugar into small zip-loc bag. Squeeze out air and zip. Add ice cubes to large zip-loc bag. Sprinkle 6 tbsp. salt on ice. Put smaller bag into larger bag. Add more ice and salt. Shake for 8-10 minutes until mixture freezes and thickens. (You can wear gloves to shake if your hands are cold.)

Akiva Becomes Cohen Gadol

Parasha came to life in Gan Gimmel as Akiva became a Cohen Gadol! We learned about the 4 special clothes of the Cohen and the 8 special clothes of the Cohen Gadol. We made a choshen mishpat snack and and then made one to take home. We combined math with Torah as we counted out 12 "gems" representing the 12 shvatim. We sang our shvatim song as we did our projects.

Picture Perfect Presidents!

Of the people, by the people, for the people!
This week, Gan Aleph began learning all about our past presidents! We began with Abraham Lincoln, since his birthday is coming up this Saturday. We learned that Lincoln was the 16th president and was one of the greatest presidents of all time. To honor his presidency we engaged in many "Lincoln-related" activities...
After learning that Lincoln's face is on the penny, the children took part in a "Lincoln Penny Toss." They used their probability skills and predicted which side of the penny would win the race...heads or tails. They took turns tossing the penny and filling in their chart accordingly. When one side reached the top, they evaluated their results and looked at how many times each side was landed on.

We learned that Abraham Lincoln was 6 feet 4 inches tall! What exactly does that mean? We used a tape measure and our bathroom door to visualize how tall that actually was. We saw that when Lincoln wore his stove pipe hat, he was even taller than the door! The children wrote their names on index cards and measured their own heights against Lincoln's. Even the Morahs took a turn to see how much taller he was than them!

Last, we looked at some of the clothing our past presidents wore. We discussed how some presidents wore long jackets, white tights and white wigs! The children are using cut outs of their faces to create caricature-type images of themselves as president. They are carefully cutting out all of the clothing they would wear and using stuffing as white wigs! After learning about the role of a president, they each wrote what they would want to do if they were the president, and are attaching their ideas to their presidential portraits!

Hip Hip Hooray! It's Penguin Day!

A morah walked through the halls and saw Gan Aleph waddling around like penguins. "What's the occasion?" she asked. "It's Penguin Day!" On Tuesday, Gan Aleph arrived at school wearing black and white and excited to celebrate all that we have learned about this fascinating animal. We began the day with a special penguin snack. The children were provided with oreo cookies, candy corn and chocolate chips and were presented with the task of building a penguin on their plates using these items. It was fun to see how different children used these items in different ways to create their penguins. Of course, the best part was when we got to eat them!

Next, we played a fun math game using jellyfish. We sat around in a circle and looked at these jellyfish swimming in the "ocean." The children were presented with different addition and subtraction problems based on these fish. For example, "6 fish were swimming in the ocean. Along came a penguin named Vicky and ate 3 fish! How many fish were left!?" Vicky ate the fish and we counted the remaining fish together.

In the afternoon, we had our very own waddle relay. The children lined up into two teams and were given a ball to hold in between their knees in order to ensure the best possible waddle! We raced back and forth in the halls and cheered each other on! It was a wonderful display of good sportsmanship and we waited to make sure everyone had a turn to waddle.

By the end of the day, our penguin bulletin board had gone up and our life-size penguins were hung next to it. The children are so proud of their work and invite you to waddle your way to our outside bulletin board to view their creativity and enthusiasm for the penguins!