Class Bet : Winter

It has been a wonderful week in school after such a long vacation. The children transitioned smoothly into the class routine, and were so happy to see their friends and Morahs.

We started exploring the many aspects of winter in our class this week.

On Monday, the children were excited to come to school, and see the many layers of snow in our outdoor space. The children wanted to go outside, but the weather did not permit, instead the children decided to bring buckets of snow into the classroom, and experiment mixing snow and paint into the snow.

Sam decided to add his animals to the snow, and create a winter animal scene.

During circle time, we discussed the environment during winter in the city. As a follow-up, we went on a winter walk around the block to observe the winter weather around us. After out walk, we gathered at the circle, and we shared our winter observations with our friends.

Mitten matching game required a lot of concentration to find the right pair, and to use the clothes pin to put the set together.

Sensory box:

After all the snow melted outside, we decided to create our own pretend snow. We followed a recipe to create moon sand, and it turned out to be a really fun sensory activity.

The mixture contains:

4 cups of flour to 1/2 cup of baby oil.

The children really enjoyed the way it felt, and loved getting messy in their creative play. The children expanded the play through bringing animals, pots and pans to the sensory box.

Evan is filling up a measuring cup with flour:

Arieh is working hard squirting some baby oil into the cup

And its ready!

Noa built a fire station:

Fine motor skills:
Filling up ice cube tray with colored water.

Chanah decided to share her tray with Arieh and invited him over to work.

The children enjoyed creating their own snow flakes, while enhancing their cutting skills.

Snow flake inspired free art.

This week we transformed our Drama Center into a nursery corner. Some of our friends have new siblings, and others have babies at home, therefore, we decided to bring some baby dolls to our class. Our friends love taking care of the babies! They spend time "bathing" them and wrapping them up in blankets. The friends take such great care of the babies in our classroom:)

Charlie was very responsible with his baby and he wouldn't forget the baby behind as he went around the classroom.

Noa is giving her baby a bath.

and Diana decided to clean up the rug.

Wednesday was a very cold day, and we discussed how we can keep ourselves warm in the winter. Some of the friends came up with the idea of hot drinks.

We took this opportunity to invite our friends from Class Gimmel for a tea party.

We discussed how a host should treat their guests. The children prepared place mats for our guests to sit at our circle, and we were very welcoming and polite as they came in. Our friends were hospitable and served hot tea to all our guest!

The friends enjoy a reading circle. We read a book about winter, as we drank our tea, and ate our raisins.

Fine motor skills:

The children also enjoyed creating white goop in our classroom to represent the snow outside. The ingredients for the goop are a mixture of 1 cup Elmers glue to 1/2 Linit liquid starch.

JoJo decided to add shaving cream to the goop, and created a new consistency to the goop.

It's so stretchy!

Hiding the animals in it!

We discussed cold versus freezing and how it is freezing outside. We decided to make an experiment to see what would happen if we leave some water outside overnight. We wrote down their predictions of what would happen. The next day, we brought it back to our class and the water had turned into ice.