September 13, 2019
It was wonderful to have a full week of school!
Tamar students have begun working on their “All About Me” books in Writer’s Workshop. The children began with self-portraits and have moved on to writing about where they live and their favorite games. Thank you to everyone who already has sent in a baby picture and information about your child’s name. Please keep those adorable pictures and name stories coming…
In Fundations, we continue to focus on reviewing how to form the lower-case letters. This week we reviewed lower-case p, j, e, r, d, s, g and a. Discriminating between short vowel sounds is often very challenging for young readers. The children used small mirrors to help them see how to form each short vowel sound correctly with their lips, tongues and mouths. Ask your child about the short vowel song we have been practicing with Baby Echo.
Tamar students completed their own American flags as part of our first social studies unit on the flag. We read a book, Our Flag Was Still There: The True Story of Mary Pickersgill and the Star Spangled Banner. The next time you are in Washington DC, look for the huge flag that she made for the War of 1812 and is now displayed at the Smithsonian’s National History Museum.
In math, we have been busy comparing numbers. We learned the mathematical symbols for greater than, less than and equals to. We also have been learning about number patterns. The children love playing the math logic game, Pico, Fermi, Bagel. Ask your child to teach it to you.
Tamar students had wonderful tefilot this week with HaMorah Sydney and her guitar. The children also took part in a kind of shofar “petting zoo” as part of our Jewish Living and Learning class. Rav Shira and I brought in all of our shofarot and the children had a chance to try to play various ones. We learned about the different “calls” that the shofar makes: tekiah, shevarim and t’ruah. The children really enjoy the song, Shofar Blast by Ellen Allard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfhbLddUnW8
Best Wishes for a relaxing and peaceful Shabbat,