Small moments, bulbs and weaving

The past few weeks have been quite relaxing....not all of the time, of course, but we've been spending at last 15 minutes a day sitting around in small groups weaving. I'm always amazed at how meditative and calming this activity is. It's also wonderful for fine motor development, and in choosing from our giant tub of yarn, children get to make creative design choices. We'll spend another week working on our mini-looms in school. When February vacation comes, students will have the option of stopping and taking their weaving home or continuing to add more rows after vacation. Some children have expressed an interest in trying out our larger looms, so those will be available as a choice as well.

Our bulbs have been growing, some more assuredly than others. They range from a few inches tall to over a foot - we've been measuring them once a week with unifix cubes, while making notes on any other changes in our bulb journals. We've hypothesized together about why they have grown at such different rates. These will also come home at the end of next week, and I've promised any children whose bulbs didn't flower that they can try again with new bulbs after vacation.

Not our bulbs. But I wish they were!

In language arts, we are coming to the end of our small moment writing unit. A new skill I'm working on teaching children is revision - taking a story you think is finished, and finding ways to make it even better. I modeled this process with a story I had written, and children have spend two days reviewing the story they plan to publish. The first day, they worked independently, and the second day, children read their story to their sixth-grade buddies and got constructive feedback from these very respected partners. Next week we will work on publishing these stories and having a writing celebration.

In Hebrew, we have still been working on names of clothing. Children made giant paper dolls that we described together, and we've now moved on to winter clothing - coast, mittens, scarves, gloves and hats. I've found a wonderful resource on spotify of songs designed to teach Hebrew vocabulary - we are using this one to teach winter clothing:


Other songs we've learned from that album are "Choref (Winter is Here)" and "Shir Ha-etz (The Tree Song), all of which are available to listen to for free on Spotify.

In Torah, we've been following the stories of our ancestors, most recently reading about the birth of the twins Esav and Yaakov, and Yaakov's trading his birthright for some red lentil soup. Tomorrow I'll give children a chance to help make some red lentil soup, and we can consider together whether it was a good trade or not.

Did you know that we have many helpers in the Gan? Morah Ayla, an America Reads volunteer, joins us three times a week, and we have a new student teacher from UMASS, Jasmine Myers.

Stay tuned for an update form Morah Andrea on handwriting and math. Also, over vacation, I'll have a chance to share with you a post about the outdoor classroom, a weekly learning experience that children can choose to do with Nili, Tal's mother during explorations.

Also during exploration, children have been working collaboratively to transform the imagination station into a space station/rocket ship. They have had some wonderful ideas, and it's been fun to step back and let their ideas take shape.

When we return from vacation, we'll be tapping the large sugar maple in the parking lot and collecting sap for maple syrup. It's one of my favorite activities of the year!