Parents Visit Ganon Bet for Chanukah

 We were very lucky to have Charlie's Mom and Willa's Mom come into our classroom.
They helped us make yummy
Chanukah chocolates.

 Ganon Bet was thrilled to have Sammy's Daddy come into our classroom to make delicious potato latkes.

Thank you we love having parents visit our classroom.

Floreva Cohen Visits ECD

The excitement in ECD was palpable on Wednesday when children's author Floreva Cohen visited the department.  She went from class to class to read her popular book "A Hanukkiyah for Dina."  The children had a chance to ask Mrs. Cohen many intuitive questions they had about how she got the idea for this book, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, and how to go about getting a book published.

After hearing the story, the children in Ganon Aleph went on to make their own chanukiyah out of potatoes, just like Dina did in the book!

A Chanukiyah Out of Potatoes???

After reading the book "A Hanukkiyah for Dina" by Floreva Cohen, the children were asked whether they thought the story was fiction or non-fiction. They decided it must be fiction because you could never make a chanukiyah out of potatoes! We then proceeded to cut four potatoes in half, scoop out the middle, put a whole potato in the center as the shamash, pour in some olive oil, place some wicks inside, and light our potato chanukiyah, just like Dina did in the story!! (The children then decided that the story was non-fiction!)

Gan Aleph "Flips" for Chanukah!!!

It smelled so delicious today in Gan Aleph. Meir's mommy, Ruchi Abboudi, graciously spared some time to come in to fry latkes with our class. The children peeled and cut and grated the potatoes and onions. They mixed it together with eggs and finally Meir's mommy helped the children fry them in oil. The smell was so delicious it wafted all the way through the halls of Yavneh. The children could not wait to eat them. What a yummy activity for Chanukah time! Happy Chanukah!

ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO

At Chanukah time, Gan Daled placed a sweet potato into water.

During the next few months the potato sprouted roots and leaves which grew into vines. The root and leaves grew and grew until we decided that we didn't have a container large enough to hold them and it was time to transfer the potato into the ground.

The children enthusiastically dug a large hole and planted the potato in it. They replaced the soil and carefully watered the plant. We will be observing our plant and hope it will continue to flourish.

We would love to hear from anyone who knows how we will know if potatoes are growing underground.

Gan Daled Goes Green

Gan Daled is having a wonderful time conducting experiments with plants. At Chanukah time we examined potatoes - how they grow and what we can make from them. We placed a sweet potato so that half of the potato was in water and half was out of the water. We waited and waited. After several weeks we saw roots grow from the potato. A number of weeks later leaves emerged from the potato and we now have a beautiful plant.

We took two celery stalks and placed one in a container with red food coloring and one in a container with blue food coloring. The children have been observing the colors travel through the celery all the way up to the leaves. They are learning how food travels through a plant.

The children planted bird seed for Tu B'Shevat which has grown into various types of grasses. We are depriving one plant of water and one plant of light. Gan Daled has observed that the plant that was deprived of light stopped growing and the plant that was deprived of water died. They concluded that plants need both water and light to survive.