A Morning in Ganon Bet

Busy discovering what red and yellow make when they're combined!

Look how tall our building is!

Having fun dressing up with Lila and Michal!

 Thursday morning in Ganon Bet!!!!!!!

Packing our suitcases to travel like Avram!

Our bags are packed we ready to go!

Wow, look at the balance beam we created!

Playing house under the table!

After playing we always have to clean-up!

Building a Sukkah in Ganon Aleph

The children in Ganon Aleph created a "life-size" sukkah out of a large appliance box for our classroom. 

After painting it and decorating it with Bruchim Ha-baim signs and paper chains they made themselves, we went outdoors to collect some s'chach. 

They have been having lots of fun entertaining guests in their very own sukkah!

Painting for Purim!

Getting ready to learn about the upcoming holiday of Purim is so much fun! Gan Gimmel set the stage for future role play of the story by creating a huge mural of the city of Shushan. We began to learn the story through the use of visuals, puppets and songs! As we learn about each of the characters we will create them with various art media and add them to our gorgeous backdrop.

Ganon Bet, Ganon Bet What Do You See?

Did you know that we have a three sided easel in Ganon Bet? Do you know what happens when you put an object in the middle of the easel? We can see it through the plexiglass, how cool! Chanukah is going to be here before we know it and we decided to paint our own version of chanukiot, which are proudly displayed in our classroom! Using our fine motor skills and our spatial skills we had to think of how we wanted to create our chanukiot and use our paintbrush to bring it to life!  Come take a look for yourselves!

Gan Bet's Oily Mix Up

Learning about the nes of Chanukah led us to explore the properties of oil. We learned that oil comes from olives, which grow on trees. We counted 26 olives, and pressed them with a garlic press, to see how much oil we would get. We only measured 4 1/2 teaspoons! We realized that it takes a lot of olives to make just a little oil.

We also conducted more experiments with oil. The children compared a mixture of paint and water with a mixture of paint and oil. They sharpened their fine motor skills by squeezing droppers with these mixtures. While the water mixture spread quickly on their papers, the oil mixture dropped in clumps, and the oil spread out around the paint. We knew from last week's experiment that water and oil don't mix; now we learned that oil doesn't mix with paint either!

To further test the oil's propensity to separate from other liquids, we predicted what might happen if we added salt to a mixture of oil, water, and food coloring. Initially, the salt attached to the oil, making it heavier, so that it sunk to the bottom of the bottle. However, when we came back from lunch, we saw that the oil was now on top, and the water on the bottom! We learned that the salt had dissolved, and so the oil separated from the oil.

Creating Different Colors

Ganon Bet had a great time using their fine motor skills creating different colors with red, blue and yellow finger paint. We mixed red & yellow, yellow & blue, red & blue, and red, blue and yellow. Do you know what happens when you mix milk, food coloring and soap together. We do!

Try it at home and tell us what happens.

Fall Leaves

Ganon Bet used magnifying glasses to look carefully at some leaves. We discovered that one side of the leaf had bumps called veins. The veins carry food to the leaf to help it stay green. We know our body has veins that carries blood throughout to give us food.

We made beautiful leaf wall hanging by painting the veins of different oak and maple leaves and then pressing them onto a piece of of burlap.

Gan Gimmel Gets Going!!

Gan Gimmel is off to a great start! After doing Hebrew calendar, the children realized that Rosh Hashana is just two weeks away! We have tapuchim in our room; one was adom and one was yarok. After finding many things in the room that were adom, yarok and tzahov, the children got a chance to paint at the easel with those colors.


Ezra, Aidan and Noam are getting to know each other as they drive through town using our emergency vehicles. What is your child's favorite thing in our classroom so far?

Getting Ready for Pesach

The children in Ganon Aleph have been so busy with their Pesach projects: sponge-painting and sewing their afikomen bags, decorating their Eliyahu cups, illustrating their "maggid" books, as well as working on assorted other creations to bring home in time for Pesach. Are you as busy at home getting ready for Pesach as they are in school??

Painting Shushan

Purim was introduced in Ganon Aleph this week. The children had fun painting Shushan scenery as a background for our Purim bulletin board. We will review the story with the children over the next few weeks through puppets, books, songs, and dramatic play.

Who Am I?

Gan Daled was excited to learn about the great artist and sculptor, Pablo Picasso. They especially enjoyed hearing about his Blue Period and his Rose Period.

Picasso invented Cubism.When he created a Cubist portrait he tried to show all sides of the face at once. This made the eyes and noses look like they were in the wrong places. The children used their fine motor skills to create their self-portraits in Picasso's style

Footprints on the Dry Land

Parshat Beshalach came to life today in Gan Gimmel!! After creating the props needed to reenact kriyat Yam Suf, the children took off their shoes and socks, stepped in a pan of paint, and watched as Moshe (Yoni Bernath) lifted his staff, split the Yam Suf, and led B'nei Yisrael out of Mitrayim. The children left footprints on the dry land as they journeyed out of Mitrayim. After the water closed up on Paroah (Ethan Badner), the girls played musical instruments and danced, just like Miriam and the women did.

Also, in connection to the parsha, the children made challah dough, watched it rise and brought home lechem mishne for shabbat! We did this after we learned about the Mann that Hashem sent down to Bnei Yisrael after leaving Egypt.

Tu Bshvat Through The Senses

Pre-K at Yavneh Academy is a multi- sensory experience. Each and every day the children use all 5 senses to navigate the classroom in all areas; including art, dramatic play, manipulatives, etc. This week in honor of Tu Bshvat, Ganon Bet used their sense of touch to create beautiful trees paintings. Instead of paint brushes, the children used their arms to create the bark of the tree, their hands as the leaves and grass, and their fingers turned into fruit! To some the paint tickled, others said it felt funny, but all around everyone had a great time creating their masterpieces!

Me And My Shadow

Gan Daled learned about the great artist, Rembrandt, who lived in Holland. He is known for his use of light and shadows. Rembrandt painted many self portraits. The children used charcoal to make their own self portraits which resembled Rembrandt's etchings. Even though charcoal is difficult to work with, the children used their fine motor skills to produce beautiful self portraits in Rembrandt's style.

Gan Daled became print makers and discovered that it is possible to make many copies from a single master. They engraved pictures onto a piece of foam to make a plate and covered it with paint. The children put a piece of paper on the plate and pressed down carefully. They observed that the picture that was printed was reversed.

Gan Daled was excited to imitate one of the greatest artists of all time. Have you ever seen a Rembrandt painting?

To learn more about Rembrandt visit :http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/

Chazak, Chazak, Vinitchazek!!

After 12 weeks of learning all of the parshiot in Sefer Beraisheet, Gan Gimmel celebrated with a beautiful siyum! The children decorated the room with life-sized paintings of the people in sefer Beraisheet. We then worked in pairs to illustrate each parasha. The children presented their parshiot at the siyum and sang our parsha song. We danced and celebrated together and enjoyed a delicious cake that was decorated with lots of goodies that connected to the parshiot.

Marc Chagall in Gan Bet

The art of Marc Chagall was evident in every area of our classroom. In the baking center, the children were busy creating "stained glass" cookies. They mixed the dough and shaped the cookies. They used blocks to smash lollipops in sandwich bags, and then added the crushed candy to the center of each cookie. What a surprise when the cookies were baked: they looked just like stained glass windows!

In the art center the children experimented with flowers to paint backgrounds for their pictures. They tested different methods of applying the paints. It was fun to use flowers instead of paint brushes, and the results are gorgeous!

Everyday Fun and Learning in Gan Bet

A typical day in Gan Bet includes many fun, skill-building activities. Matt and Ezra patiently work together to paint tubes for a class bulletin board. Their focus on a common purpose is remarkably mature. Tzvi and Hannah E. share a CD-book set in the listening center. They follow along the printed words as they listen with their head phones, turning the pages at appropriate moments, and enjoying the story together. Hannah G. is drawing a picture of her family with bright markers. Morah Carol and the children had separated the markers by color. They have found that this type of organization encourages the children to be more thoughtful in their selections, and more respectful of the materials and their work. No detail left unturned in educating our children!