Animal Art

The children have been very involved with the new animal basket
Morah Mimi introduced into the classroom this week.

The children have been using them for dramatic play, measuring and sorting, and exploration.

 Morah Mimi suggested that everyone bring their favorite animal to the art table to draw or trace.

 This activity created a lot of great discussion between the children.

How Many Apple Tall Are You?

Chana measuring Hannah

Counting the apples...

Amanda and Aiden measured Sammy

Hannah measuring Aiden

Hannah measuring Chana

Our sign helped us with order and number recognition.

After documenting the numbers on our white boards, we lined up in order.

Here we're trying to figure it out.

The next day we formed a graph.

 It took many skills to fill it. 
It was challenging to put one sticker per box, in sequence, and recognize the numbers.
It was great to watch them help each other out.

Chana pointing out the title to her peers.

Morah Mimi color coded it to make it clearer. 
Some of the questions we were able to answer:
Who is the tallest? Who is the same height?  Who is the smallest?

Playbased Learning: Dr., Trains, and Animals

Dr. Sammy charting Amanda's report at her visit to the Dr.

(Check out the video:)

Now Sammy bring her baby to Dr. Amanda

Sammy took a leadership in roll after she thought it would be a great idea to form a "Choo Choo" train.
She encouraged all to join and they did happily.
Some of the children took their special friends along.
We made stops at the zoo, supermarket, school, and playground.

Midway Sammy realized that her pet needs a seat belt.

(Video in email)

Morah Mimi was invited to join as the conductor.

This is one of our train stops at the supermarket.

Sammy and Amanda as Mommy and daughter.
The baby is close by.

Hannah sets out a performing center.  The book is used as the stage.
Her animals take center stage as she helps them act along.

They decide to use the book and blocks to erect a tent for the animals and Hannah's special friend.

Aiden will make a good husband and father:)
He did a great job cleaning all the crumbs!

Hannah creates a special line up for the animals.

Parking Garage

After lining up and counting all our cars......

Hannah and Sammy use our fall vegetables to create a parking garage.

Communication and Leadership

Often, the children sit together as Hannah and Aiden read and share their "About Me" books.

Pumpkin Pie

After baking our pumpkin we scoop out the pulp.

The children take turns measuring and adding the ingredients, following the recipe on the wall.

We break to smell and contrast the spices.

The next day we add the eggs.  We take turns cracking the eggs open.
We check to make sure there are no blood spots which would render it un-kosher.
We discuss the parts of the egg: shell, yolk, white etc.
We decided that we'd love to watch the eggs hatch.
Morah Mimi will arrange for that soon.

We take turns using the mixer.  We learn a new fancy word for the funny thing the mixer does to our hands: vibration.

Bringing our pumpkin cakes to the oven very carefully.

Finished product!

Pumpkin Seeds:  We learned a new name for it, Pepita!
After learning that we can eat the seeds of a pumpkin too, we roasted our very own pumpkin seeds.
First, we washed them  and dried them really well.
Next, Hannah poured oil over them.

Aiden added some salt.

And....then we had fun mixing it with our hands.

Sammy carried the tray to the oven.

Our roasted pumpkin seeds: Pepitas!