An Auspicious First Day

Today was a very full and exciting day. It was so much fun to spend time with all your children.

Here are some highlights of the day - I hope they can serve as conversation starters with your child.

We had our first morning meeting. We always begin with singing, and this morning we sang Aikendrum, Peace Like a River, and Heveinu Shalom Aleichem. I was thrilled that many students joined right in - often children are a little shy on the first day. We read our morning messsage and the daily schedule, and taught some important information like the bathroom signal.  We also played a name game, followed by a tour of the first floor. After all that listening, we went outside for an extra early recess so we could "get our wiggles out." Which we did.

Teaching a classmate how to get down

After recess, we came back in for snack. Although I am still waiting for the kippot to arrive that we give each Gan student, we paused to say a thank you for our food by reciting the Motzi. We then washed hands and enjoyed our hearty snacks. Thanks to everyone for generally packing things that children could manage independently. At clean up, children learned about the class compost bin, which we will empty on weekly trips to the farm. Later, in October, we'll do a study of fungus and decomposition and much later in the year we'll do a study on trash - both units give children a deeper understanding of the how and why of composting.

We moved into Explorations - otherwise known as choice time. As you can see, children were very busy. Two children decided to write books and we had an impromptu author's circle when they shared their stories aloud. It was really impressive for the first day of school!

After a second recess, we did an art activity using natural materials - we explored beautiful and interesting ways to arrange shells. Photos of the arrangements are already hanging up in the Gan - come have a look!

During art, we discovered that not one, but TWO of our caterpillars had formed chrysalises during the morning. This has never happened on the first day of school before! We pretty much dropped everything (including pack up), in order to get a look at this miracle.

I wish I had thought to recite a shehehiyanu - a blessing honoring "firsts". Fortunately, Morah Tzipporah, our music teacher, taught us this very blessing at our end-of-day assembly, so I hope to remember it next time the opportunity presents itself. For those of you interested in learning more about this blessing here are two videos - one explaining the blessing, and one of our own Felicia singing it. ( I think I accidentally cut of the end....sorry!)

Tomorrow is a full day. Please make sure your child has a snack and a lunch, and knows which is which. Please, please, let me know if you have any questions!