April
Passover
During the month of August we explored the holiday of Passover and learned about the various components of the holiday. We learned all about the traditional foods we eat during our seder meal and the reasons behind each food. We also talked about the "4 questions" and thought about the Jews who were saved from Egypt many years ago.
Making Seder Plates/ Afikomen Bag
Seder is one of the most sensory-heavy rituals of the Jewish year. During the seder, we don’t just tell the story of the Exodus, we see, smell, feel, and taste liberation. Many of the elements of this sensory experience appear on the seder plate which serves as the centerpiece of the seder table. The seder plate traditionally holds five or six items, each of which symbolizes a part (or multiple parts) of the Passover story. This year we created our own seder plates to use as the center piece for our classroom seder meal.
A favorite part of the Passover seder for children is finding the afikoman (a large piece of a matzah that is hidden during the Seder). Children search for the afikoman and usually receive a prize for finding it. We thought it might be fun to include children in the making of an Afikoman Bag. They were able to design their own bags and bring them home to use during their own passover celebrations.
Passover Scavenger Hunt
After telling the story of passover many times we decided to go for a hunt to find different things related to the passover story. We found a baby in a basket, a piece of matzah, and even a pyramid!
Finding a basket to keep baby Moses afloat
In the passover story, baby Moses floated down the Nile in a basket away from danger. We tested different baskets that we found in the classroom to keep baby Moses afloat in the rough waters of our water table. We found that many of the baskets kept him afloat while some of the baskets sunk to the bottom.
Building a Pyramid
We all worked together to build a great pyramid just like the Jews in our Passover story.
Weather
The weather is more than just wind or rain, but also includes some stunning effects in the sky like rainbows, flashes of lightning, and sunsets. Our lives are affected by the weather every day. During the month of April, we explored different elements of weather like wind and rain. We learned that windy, rainy days can be just as much fun as bright, sunny days!
Making Kites
The wind can be make the trees wave and our bodies shake. It can also power our homes and scatter seeds to create new life. We explored the wind in several ways. We made 3 different types of kites to test how they would fly in the wind. We also watched a weather vane spin in the wind.
Making a Rain gauge
Often times strong wind is a precursor for another weather event called rain. To find out more about the rain, we built our own rain gauge. Before we could put it outside to catch the rain, we had to test it and practice our measuring skills. After we became experts at reading our rain gauge, we set it outside to collect rain. When we brought it back inside, we recorded the data on our rain charts.
Counting Raindrops
We practiced our counting skills by matching the correct amount of rain drops to the corresponding number above.
Rain Drop Stories
For our final Rain project, we created rain drops out of water patterned paper and made up our own stories about how our raindrops made it down to earth. We started by creating a water-like pattern on our paper using shaving cream and blue paint. Then, we cut out our rain drops very carefully. Lastly we came up with stories about each of our raindrops and where they landed when they fell from the sky.
