May 02
This week Shteelim dug into the Aleph Beit in new ways. When we realized the children were especially excited to play a colorful Aleph-Beit matching game we kept on adding steps and challenges to deepen their exploration and enliven their learning. Here is how you play! Step one: Line up the Aleph Beit cards face …
Apr 26
This week in Shteelim, we all came together and played an Ivrit memory game. What started out as a two-person game, evolved into the whole group playing together (sometimes as individuals and sometimes as teams.) The game itself evolved as well, from finding matches, to helping our חברים (chaverim – friends) remember where certain אותיות (otiyot – …
Apr 25
What amazing children! What an amazing community we have together!
Apr 12
Nitzanim learned a new game this week for משחקים mischakim (physical activity, Hebrew, and community building). It’s tough to keep holding hands and work as a team! We couldn’t stop laughing as we played. The tag game: three children hold hands, and one of the three is designated as the person to avoid being tagged. One child …
Mar 15
This year, I thought Nitzanimers were ready to understand the plagues not as cutesy little props to throw during the seder for entertainment, but as part of what took place for the Israelites to go free. I started by reminding children that the plagues happened to ALL of the Egyptians, and asked children if they …
Mar 15
Rabbi Rebecca: What are some things Jews might do on Pesach? {children had many ideas, and then…} Girl 1: We eat מרור (maror - bitter herb) because of the bitterness of being a slave. Boy 1: Why would they want to remind us about being a slave? ‘Cause that’s a bad thought. Girl 2: Yeah, maror …
Jan 10
The Tzevah Wheel Game was a huge hit with our Shteelimers this week! Not only did it produce laughter and clapping, it also helped us review what we’ve learned over the last several months during our Keshet theme: צבעים (tzeva’eem – colors) in Hebrew, primary, secondary and complimentary tzeva’eem and experimenting with mixing different tzeva’eem. …
Nov 05
Ask the Nitzanimers. They’ll tell you: אָדוֹם וְצָהוֹב עוֹשִׂים כָּתוֹם. (Red and yellow make orange.) Or maybe they’ll say: צָהוֹב וְכָּחוֹל עוֹשִׂים יָרוֹק. (Yellow and blue make green.) Or כָּחוֹל וְאָדוֹם עוֹשִׂים סָגוֹל. (Blue and red make purple.) It was easy to learn because we worked together. We played lots of צבע (tzeva – color) games together, worked with friends to …
Oct 18
Our new theme, קשת (Keshet), has lots of opportunities to play in pairs (just like the animals went on the ark!). It’s a great way to get to know our friends in Shteelim (Pre-K/K). Big paper, big possibilities. We worked together to draw a pair of חיות (chayot – animals) to put on the …
May 16
Lots of math these days! We are learning to count to 100 in Hebrew. Each day, Nitzanim children guess how many marbles/beans/stickers/etc. are in a glass jar, and write their guess in Hebrew. At (pegisha - meeting), we count the pieces, out loud in Hebrew. Children figure out the difference between the closest guess and the actual …
