If You Give a Pre-Ker a Muffin...

Today MacPherson's (remember when we went there?) had 10 lbs of bananas for $.99.  This was clearly a sign that we needed to bake, the most delicious way to reinforce mathematics.

 Peeling (pincher fingers in action)

 Mashing (sensory feedback)

 Taking turns to add all the ingredients and stirring.

During this process, we worked on number recognition, counting, addition, subtraction, mentioned fractions, and number to objective correlation. 

The muffins were done but the children were not.

"I love baking! We should bake more!" suggested Allison.  
"Yeah!!!" almost everyone agreed.
"No, I don't like baking. Except chocolate cookies," Nechama shared.
"We should bake lots more. And then have a bake sale," suggest Syma.
"Yeah!" agreed Yitzy. "We'll be like the big kids."
"We could open a bakery," added Yaakov, excitedly. "And we'll make lots of money! When the school runs out of money, we will give them ours."

I think their plan (for selling baked goods) is an amazing one, involving so many valuable educational components!  IYH, we will move forward on this, making the Pre-K Snack Shop. We hope to sell our baked good as part of a healthy snack option for the whole school. 

Leaf Fun

During Sukkot break, the look of our playground changed. The children enjoyed playing with the leaves in a variety of ways. They were motivated and engaged for a very long time, always finding new ways to extend the play. If your child is not in these photos, they were enjoying an aspect of the playground other than the new autumn leaves.

First Field Trip!

Today we went to MacPherson's to buy apples and all the Simanim for Rosh Hashana.

 The journey was exciting, with everyone walking so nicely.

 Everyone selected something from the shopping list.

 We almost forgot carrots, but Dassi reminded us.

Tomorrow we will start projects with our groceries.

Fantastic Fun on Day One

Day one of school was full of smiles and fun as the students became (re)acquainted with the classmates, classroom, and Morahs..

 Our curriculum revolved around properly orientating the students with the daily schedule, school building, and expectations.
The students learned the four class rules and compared them with David's behavior in David Shannon's David Goes to School.

We also read the beloved Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes.
 After this book, we rocked in our school shoes for a tour of the school, including the brand new lunchroom.

Tomorrow, to review names, our memory, and be like Pete the Cat, we will see who can match school shoes to their wearer. You can see it here.

Beautiful Things Come Out

Today we have the great pleasure of seeing two different, deeply beautiful items, outside of their casing.
First was butterflies! This morning three butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. The metamorphosis has been miraculous to observe. Today we watched them emerge, their wings harden, their proboscis merge, and their first attempts at flight. It was amazing.

A few days ago Chana asked an incredible philosophical question. "Does a caterpillar know it will become a butterfly? Or does it realize it when it is in the chrysalis? Or only when it is a butterfly he looks and says, 'Oh! I'm a butterfly!'?" When do we realize what we are and what we will be?



In preparation for Shavuot we learned about the Torah and its parts. In our classroom, we have a small 'not-quite-real' Torah. Today, Rabbi Margoloese took the real Torah out of the Aron HaKodesh and shared it with us. It was a pleasure for all to behold.