Term 3 - Week 3 : Types Of Birds

This week our topic was different types of birds……….we spoke about birds of prey, with their talons, rounded beaks and incredibly good eyesight, nocturnal birds whose eyes are so big that they cannot move them instead they have to turn their heads half way round on either side, to the flightless birds like the penguin and the ostrich, but the one thing that classifies all these in the same category and makes them different from any other animal is the fact that they all have feathers!!! We also broadened our knowledge with learning about the fastest flying bird (falcon), the largest bird (ostrich), the smallest bird (hummingbird).
Our focus letter this week was ‘u’ – the children glued, painted and creatively decorated their beautiful umbrellas’ – and came up with some interesting words like up, under, umbrella, etc….
In keeping with our bird theme, we decided to make binoculars for our bird watching and as such, in life skills this week we painted, decorated and put a set of these together – I believe the activity was a great hit!
We have a fun cutting and sorting activity planned where the children will get a chance to paste a picture of a bird in the appropriate box, , but I will tell you more about how that went next week.
We celebrated Carlas’ birthday this week, wishing you a very happy birthday and thank you to you and your family for the lovely donation of a book on behalf of your birthday.
I would like to extend a huge thank you to my colleagues (Morah Marina, Morah Sally, Morah Lana) for assisting in my classroom whilst I was away sick – it was a comforting thought knowing that my class was in such capable hands. Thanks for a job well done!
Thanks to all those who have sent books for the theme table, please keep them coming – we will be continuing with our bird theme next week, branching into nests and eggs, so watch this space.
Until we chat again…..with love Morah Mandy

Term 3 - Week 2

Wow - the weeks are sure flying by!!
Our theme this week was BIRDS - 'what it is' and its body parts, and we spent a fun week discussing this. And to the delight of many, with lots of giggles and jiggles, we all got to do the chicken dance....!! (ask your kids they'll show you how it is done)
Our letter focus this week was the letter 'b' - the children got to create and decorate (using feathers, foam, paint and koki's) their very own beautiful birds, and came up with some good words - butterfly, books, bat, box, banana, to name but a few.
In life skills the children peeled and chopped vegetables to make delicious vegetable soup, which they got to enjoy as part of Shabbat.
As a further activity, they did a worksheet on parts of the bird - they had to build their birds with cut out body parts of a bird, some very interesting results followed, they may not all resemble birds, but loads of fun was had by all!!
We will be continuing our theme of birds next week, branching into types of birds - please keep those books coming for our nature table!
So watch this space......until we chat again.....
With love xx Morah Mandy

Term 3 - Week 1 'Welcome Back'

Wow it is hard to believe that the anticipation for the extra long June/July holidays have come and gone and we are already at the end of our first week back at school and very much into the swing of things!!
As always at the beginning of every term there is huge excitement to be back at school, see all our friends and Morahs again and to get our hands onto all the fun new materials! To see the kids beautiful, bright, shining faces on entering their classroom, it was heartwarming and gratifying to see how comfortable and content they are to be back 'at home'
This week we have been settling in......loving our new resources and materials and re-acquainting ourselves with our 'sinai agreements'.
In life skills we made beautiful friendship bracelets(their little fingers worked really hard) but what made these a little different and extra special is that we added the numbers '46664' on them to celebrate with the rest of the world our amazing Nelson Mandela - and each child got to draw beautiful pictures for Madiba for his birthday on Sunday 18 July. We had a very brief discussion about him and I promised the children that I would send their beautiful pictures to him for his 92nd birthday.
In honour of Tisha B'Av - we had a beautiful 'glitter art activity' (thank you Morah Sarah) - the children absolutely loved peeling off the paper and shaking glitter all over to create their very beautiful Beit Hamikdash - we all literally sparkled with glitter from head to toe!!
This week we were lucky to celebrate two birthdays - Wishing Ethan L and Kira a very happy year and a very big thank you to both families for your beautiful donation of puzzles and games to the school in honour of your birthdays.
Next week we begin our themes starting with birds, your contribution to our theme table would be greatly appreciated!
So watch this space......until we chat again!!
With love Morah Mandy