How Much Fun Can One Week Be ??

We borrowed a small sand table from another room.  Our class loves sensory play so this was a busy spot all week.  Interesting to note that sweeping up the sand from the table and chairs was  almost as much fun for the kids...don't you wish they would apply that same "cleaning gene" when they are home!

Palaces and castles are a part of so many fairy tales familiar to the children.  They all know about towers, flags and arches.  Giving the children a variety of precut shapes and a glue stick allowed them the freedom to create a palace of their own.  The next step was to draw themselves as king or queen and tell us what they would do if they were in that position of power....read their cute answers on the board outside our room.  This was a great lead-in to the Purim story since not all kings make wise decisions!

Hard to see, but Sophia has constructed a grogger from a  bread stick and cheese cube....great integration of what we're learning into real life skills. 

Here we are in the gan, investigating some dirt that Heidi took from the compost bin.

The children identified what they found, such as pieces of fruits and vegetables.  The highlight was finding a worm!

Now the kids are observing dirt Heidi took from one of the vegetable beds.

Charlie is demonstrating what happens when you squeeze that dirt together....

Sammie tried it, too.  It clumps together in a  hard ball.  Heidi explained how difficult it would be for plant roots to get through that compacted dirt.  When we added composted soil to this dirt, the ball would not stay together.  This makes it easier for plant roots to get through.   The children applied this knowledge to our study of the Arctic and the small flowers that grow there.  Ice is just like that compacted ball...hard for roots to get through.

After our lesson with Heidi, the girls enjoyed the sunshine and the smell of the flowers in the gan.

It's our last time to be Shabbat leaders at Temple...lots of parents came for this bittersweet moment.

To end our fun filled week, we started an experiment with water soluble beads,  comparing the difference between how tap water and distilled water effects their size.

The purple beads were in distilled water. By using equal sized glass pitchers, the children were able to observe the differences in the rate of absorption.

As Charlie said, "This is unbelievable!"  We'll see how much the beads grow over the weekend.