Term 3 - Week 7 - Creepy Crawlies

Hi there Moms and Dads,

Well if your skin isn't crawling by now, maybe this weeks theme will get you going - its the great big world of creepy crawlies! The dictionary defines these as animals that creep or crawl so thats exactly what we set out to discover.

From spiders and centepedes to snails and earthworms we had our work cut out for us in learning about the unique make-up and habits of these creatures. Did you know spiders have 8 legs and not 6 like insects or that a snail carries it home on its back for protection unlike the slug, who sadly is homeless. Thanks to Kaylee and Romi for bringing us some real live snails from their gardens to inspect.

Now if the kids thought that being a creepy crawly was an easy job, I think that life skills showed them just how amazing these animals really are as they tried their hands at making thier very own spider webs from ribbon. We also explored the letter "e" coming up with words such as egg, elephant, envelope and end.

In preparation for Rosh Hashanah in 2 weeks time we begun making bookmarks for grand parents day on the 7th of September. the kids are really excited for both of these upcoming events as I am sure you are all aware.

Next week we will really be sinking our teeth into the Jewish New Year, so please put those thinking caps on and bring any relevant materials for us all to expereince and enjoy.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom.
Lots of love till next time
Morah Tanya

Term 3 - Week 6 - Insects

  

Hi there Moms and Dads,

Now that we've learnt about the birds we thought it would be a good time to learn about the bees! OK, before I give you the wrong idea, our theme for this week was insects, which naturally includes bees :-)

So what makes the insect unique to the animal kingdom? Well first they have 6 legs which are attached to their bodies made up of a head, thorax and abdomen. Oh yes and of course they have little antennae on their heads which are complex sensory organs used for various purposes such as touch, taste and smell. We also learnt about the life cycle of the butterfly and its amazing journey from caterpillar to pupa and back to butterfly - truly a magical transformation.

The children put their little antennae or rather hands to good use during life skills and art this week making butterfly shaped cookies and ladybugs from paper plates respectively. All the kids enjoyed the cookies so much they even asked me to share the recipe with them which I will arrange next week.

For the letter "h" this week we made hand prints and came up with some choice words such as hair, hippo, heart and happy.

We were also fortunate enough to have Sally (not Morah Sally) come and perform some classical children’s stories for us. We were treated to the Princess and the Pea, The Tortoise and the Hare and The Ugly Duckling, lots of fun!

This week Daniel celebrates his 4th birthday - Happy Birthday Daniel!

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and fantastic weekend.
Lots of love till next time
Morah Tanya

Term 3 - Week 5 - Life Cycle of the Bird

Hi there Moms and Dads,

Birds of a feather flock together and how do we gets flocks? That’s right through reproduction and this was the basis for this weeks learning and activities.

To understand the life cycle of the bird we carried out a sequencing activity which took us through the various stages of the birds life which the children had to put in the correct order - of course in order to be successful with this exercise they had to remember which came first: the chicken or the egg? It was also explained during this exercise what makes an egg kosher, of course that being the absence of a blood spot.

In art we made our very own little chicks out of cotton wool, naturally painted them yellow and stuck beaks and eyes on them. We then converted empty egg boxes into nests for them to sleep in.

Thank you so much once again to everyone who has brought books, pictures and objects for our theme table. Next week we move away from the theme of birds and begin to explore the creep crawly world of insects.

This weeks letter was “k” which proved a little tricky for the kids as it phonetically sounds the same as "c". They did however manage to rattle off some appropriate words such as king, kangaroo, koala and kite to name but a few.

A big “Sinai Academy” happy birthday to Adin who turns 4 this week.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom.
Lots of love till next time
Morah Tanya

Term 3 - Week 4 - Nesting and Eggs

Hi there Moms and Dads,

Well this week we learnt about nest eggs - OK maybe not the kind humans build, but rather the ones our feathered friends do.

Just like humans, birds build nests to protect their eggs and chicks to ensure they have the best chance of survival out in the wild. Actually not that different to our own reasons? I am sure however, that we do not use twigs, mud, grass and leaves to protect our "nest eggs" or leave them in trees but rather in a bank!

The children also explored the different types of eggs that various birds lay, from the large strong egg of the ostrich to the tiny fragile egg of the humming bird, not to mention the yummy chicken egg we enjoy in our daily diets. Thanks to Naor for bringing in an actual ostrich egg and skeleton bone for us all to see and touch.

In between all the fun facts and learning we had a great time in life skills making our very own nests and eggs out of salt dough and then painted them. We also put our artistic talents to good use and made some egg counting booklets.

The consonant 'c' was our letter of choice this week and the kids came up with some interesting words for example camera, camel, caterpillar, candy floss and candle to name but a few.

Happy 4th Birthday to Keira who celebrated her birthday during this weeks Shabbat ring.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and looking forward to updating you on nexts weeks theme which will be the life cycle of the bird and it's eggs.

Lots of love till next time
Morah Tanya

Term 3 - Week 3 - Types of birds

Hi there Moms and Dads

Birds of a feather flock together and this week, like last, we stuck with our birds theme.

Who knew there was so much to learn about our feathery friends? For example some chirp, some tweet, some crow, some talk and some, well some just make funny noises. Some fly, some swim, some run, some walk and others just waddle. It really is a fascinating world as the kids discovered this week.

We learnt the names of some common baby birds as well as the collective nouns for certain species and I must say even I learnt a thing or two. I mean who would have thought a group of owls is called a "wisdom" or that a baby ostrich is called a "whelp". We learnt that humming birds are the smallest and that ostriches run the fastest, not mention that both lay eggs at opposite sides of the size scale.

The letter U also presented us with some challenges this week with only a handful of words being volunteered by the children, not a very exciting vowel, but rather important nonetheless.

Life skills saw the children making there very own set of binoculars which they then used during outside time to practice their bird watching abilities and explore the garden area and its surrounds.

Thank you again to all the children who contributed items to the theme table, it helps to keep things interesting. Next week we will be learning about the nesting habits and eggs of all the different bird species, which we touched on briefly this week, so keep the items coming.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a super weekend.

Lots of love till next time

Morah Tanya

Term 3 - Week 2 - Parts of a Bird

Hi there Moms and Dads

Well a rolling stone gathers no moss and boy things are surely rolling along in term 3.

This week we have been exploring the parts of a bird and what makes birds unique in our vast and great animal kingdom? Feathers, yes feathers are probably the most defining characteristics of the bird and our kids had great fun putting these "feathers" to good use making their very own birds. This weeks bird theme was also quite fitting as it was also a great way to explore the letter 'b' with beaks, bananas, boats, butterflies and balls to name but a few being the hot topic of the classroom discussions.

In life skills we learnt one way to beat the winter blues by making our own soup. The kids learnt to peel potatoes, chop carrots and dice turnips together with few other yummy vegetables.

Sticking with food Naor brought the biggest avocado I have ever seen for all of us to admire and eat. Every one had a chance to cut it open and use the avo slicer to cut it into slices. It was then thoroughly enjoyed as our midday snack. We also celebrated Musya's birthday, which fell over the holidays. Cinnamon and sugar pancakes smothered in syrup were the order of the day.

To end off the week we put our unique Sinai Academy spin on build a bear and instead built some birds from the various cut out body parts, cut out by the children. I am sure they will make great fridge decorations.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a fantastic weekend.

Lots of love till next time
Morah Tanya

Term 3 - Week 1 - Welcome Back

Hi there Moms and Dads

Well the first week back at school has been quite exciting and emotional, not only for myself but I am sure for the children too.

From a personal point of view being away during the day from my beautiful little baby Demi has been a challenge, but thank goodness for all my children who have managed to fill the gap during the day. Each day is getting easier and I am really happy to be back in the saddle! Thank you so much to all the children and parents for the heartfelt warm welcome after my 4 month absence, it has really made my week a joy. It is questions like the one asked by Daniel Haynes in Thursday's morning ring "Morah Tanya, hows your baby doing?" that have made all the difference, thank you Daniel :)

The enthusiasm over the World Cup was still evident this week with all the kids and I am sure it has been an experience they will not forget anytime soon - I know I won't. The unity felt throughout South Africa over the past 6 weeks has been a great platform to lead us up to Nelson Mandela's birthday on Sun 18th July 2010. To mark the occasion the kids made friendship bracelets this week as well as bracelets reflecting his prison number whilst incarcerated on Robben Island

The balance of the week has been spent easing back into things and with the children exploring and enjoying all the new activities out in the classroom.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a warm weekend. Go Bokke!

Lots of love till next time
Morah Tanya

Term 2: Week 8: World Cup

This week has flown by but has been very busy within the classroom.

We started off the week by celebrating Simonne's 6th birthday. We had a lovely birthday ring on Monday morning which included her mom Shelley showing us a beautiful photo timeline of Simonne's life from birth to the present day. We also got delicious cup cakes and 3 pot plants for the classroom. Thanks very much to Shelley, Jack and Simonne.

We continued our theme of World Cup and our count down to the start next week. We made flags - painting, colouring and gluing to make the different countries flags. We also made football pitches on green card board and focused on the shapes - rectangles and circles on the pitch and hexagons on the sphere football. The children have especially enjoyed playing the finger football game this week and scoring many goals to the cheers of their friends.

Our letter of the week was 'p' for puppy. We glued a picture of a puppy with floppy ears and paw prints to decorate. Other words the children came up with were poppy, pizza, pasta, pop, pineapple, porcupine, pink and princess to name but a few.

We will do baking next week to make gingerbread footballers and have a football dress up day on Wednesday as it is the last day of the term. We might even get to kick a ball around in a Class Bet football match! Looking forward to it.

Much love,
Morah Lana

Term 2:Week 7: World Cup

During class this week we have been learning a bit about the history of soccer and the build up to The World Cup. We have been looking at the different countries in the competition and their flags.

The children copied flags to colour in and the older ones also wrote their own country names. We did a maths worksheet where we had to count footballs, boots, goals and players. They even had a go at drawing their own footballers.

Our letter of the week was 'g' for girl and we all made a pretty girls with long ponytails. Onthe practical life shelf we have a bow frame where the children can practice to tie bows. They got to put this into practice when typing bows around their wool hair. The older girls also loves making their own woollen plaits.

For life skills we made some football player puppets with pegs for legs. They are all lined up in the Class Bet World Cup team. The children looked through the library books for inspiration for their choice of colour for the shirts.

So football fever is high in class bet and we continue more of this next week.
Have a fabulous weekend.
Much Love
Morah Lana

Term 2: Week 6: Shavuot & Healthy eating habits

Well another short but busy week. This week saw the preparation for Shavuot and the children decorated their boxes for the fruit donations. As we had been learning about our bodies and senses, we decided to decorate the boxes with finger print flowers. The children also coloured in flowers and drew pictures of flowers which they then glued onto their boxes.

Thanks to the parents for their generous donations of the fruits. This gave us the opportunity to link this in with our Healthy Eating habits theme. We talked about the different fruits and the children were very quick to tell us their favourites (and not so favourites).

We celebrated Layla and Kaylee's birthdays this week. Layla turned 5 and Kaylee turned 4. Thanks to their parents for joining us for their birthday rings and for the lovely donations of cultural puzzles from Kaylee.

We wisk Kiera well and look forward to seeing her back at school on Monday.

Have a lovely weekend.
Much love,
Morah Lana

Term 2: Week 5: The Senses

This week we have been finding out all about the world around us through our senses. We have smelled and tasted and felt and listened and seen so many different things.

The fun began with us tasting different foods - sweet sugar, bitter coffee, sour lemon and salty choips. There were some really funny faces pulled when we tasted the lemon. But big smiles when we tasted the sugar and the salty chip. The bitter coffee caused a bit of confusion for some... although we litererally tasted a drop of coffee on our finger, some children were very reluctant. One even said "No I cannot taste it. Coffee is not for children".

We enjoyed listening to mystery sounds - bells, a stapler, paper rustling and a cell phone ringing. We also of course worked with all our lovely Montessori Sensorial materials such as the fabrics and tactile tablets, the sound boxes and the colour boxes. All of these involve matching two of the same sounds, texture or coloured but isolates each sense per activity.

Our letter of the week was 'n' and although the obvious choice was "n for nose" we actually chose to do "net". This ties in with our football theme and the children made their own goal net with netting and sucker sticks for the posts.

During ring time we have been talking about our 10 Sinai classroom agreements. This ties in with our information groups with Morah Sarah on the Ten Commandments. We made our own version of the Torah with our own agreements on it. The main theme of the agreements is respect... Respecting Hashem, respecting our world, respecting our parents and Morahs and respecting our friends.

So we have had a busy but fun-filled week and wish you a restful and enjoyable weekend.
Much love,
Morah Lana

Term 2: Week 4: The Lungs

Phew... we have been out of breath this week with all the activities we have been focusing on to learn about our lungs and how they work. We have been blowing bubbles, blowing through straws to move different objects and then measuring the distance they travel and also making bubble art. We blew up balloons to make them different sizes - more air means bigger balloons. Thanks to good weather today, we even got outside to blow bubbles in the garden.

In Xhosa we learned that we have two 'amaphaphu' (lungs).

Our letter of the week was 'o' - for oxygen of course!! The children made an ostrich by sticking on a body and then using a straw and white paint to paint on the feathers.

Next week we are focusing on our senses with lots of things to taste, feel, see, hear and smell, alongside Shavuot, which ties in beautifully with flowers and using our senses.
Please feel free to post your comments or feedback, we love hearing from you all!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Much Love
Morah Lana

Term 2: Week 3: The Muscles

What a week! We managed to fit 5 days worth of activities into 2 days!!
We have been learning all about our muscles this week - how they contract and relax to make every single movement of our bodies possible... walking, running, smiling, blinking, painting and drawing to name but a few. We had a lot of 'body building' type poses in the class with children showing off their muscles.

Following on with Our Body theme, our life skill this week was sewing. We used needles and wool to sew around face shapes and give them some really interesting hair styles.

The children (and Morahs) are all very exctied about the trip to the Green Point Football stadium on Friday. We continue with our countdown in class, taking turns to put up the next football on our chart each day. As we get closer to the day we will be focusing more on the teams and flags and countries taking part.

Looking forward to reporting back on our trip and to another wonderfully busy week next week.

lots of love from
Morah Lana

Term 2 Week 2 The Heart

Wow ... another busy and exciting week for Class Bet downstairs.

We started off our week by celebrating Israel Day on Monday.

Our theme of The Body was expanded on this week as we learned about the vital organ which beats about 10 000 times a day in each of us... Our Heart. The children listened to their own heart beat and felt their pulses and we looked at many books and posters of pictures of our insides and learned about the facts and functions of the heart in our groups.

We traced around a child from our class to create a life-sized body poster. Each week we will be adding organs and parts of the body to it, with labels, to create a 3D poster within the classroom. We are also learning the names of the body parts and organs in Xhosa with Caleb to add to our poster.

To tie our theme into the whole curriculum we played games of counting heart shaped beads, did a maths worksheet of heart shapes in sum form and of course baked delicious heart shaped biscuits. The children loved the measuring, mixed, stiring, kneading, rolling and cutting but their favourite part was of course the eating!
The children also made colourful and tactile (rough and smooth) heart shapes collage.

On Wednesday we celebrated Morah Candice's birthday. The children made her cards and wrote her messages for her special day.

Our letter of the week was 'i' and as ever the children came up with lots of ideas of words beginning with 'i' - insect, ikky, india, Israel, Ingrid to name but a few. We made a picture of an igloo using little ice bricks (styrofoam) which the children had to use to build their igloo.

The World Cup is but 48 days away now and we started our countdown in the classroom using a poster and football counters. Each day we cover up a number and the countdown continues.

We send Daniel, Adin and Noah love and a speedy recovery, as well as Morah Candice who was off sick today.

Looking forward to another busy week next week - even though it will only be a short week. Have a fun-filled long weekend.
Until next week, much love
Morah Lana

Term 2:Week 1: Welcome back

Welcome back to all the children in Class Bet downstairs.

This week has been a busy week settling in and catching up on all the news of the holidays. News time was extra long on Monday to accommodate all the exciting stories of the past two weeks away from school.

The children are enjoying the new activities which are on the shelf this term to tie in with our theme of the body and being healthy. This will also tie in later on in the term to our World Cup theme, but more on this later in the term.

On Wednesday during Xhosa we helped celebrate Caleb's birthday with a rendition of 'Happy Birthday to you' sung in Xhosa.

Class Bet also welcomes Gabrielle to our class who moved to us from toddlers. We are very happy to have her as part of our class.

Looking forward to reading your comments and to lots of blogs to follow.
Much love from Morah Lana